Sidonie Werner (16 March 1860 – 27 December 1932) was a German Jewish schoolteacher and

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

based in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

. She was active in the German League of Jewish Women which she founded in 1904, together with

Bertha Pappenheim Bertha Pappenheim (27 February 1859 – 28 May 1936) was an Austrian-Jewish feminist, a social pioneer, and the founder of the Jewish Women's Association (). Under the pseudonym Anna O., she was also one of Josef Breuer's best-documented pat ...

. In 1929, she organized the World Conference of Jewish Women in Hamburg.

Biography

Born in Posen on 16 March 1860, Sidonie Werner was brought up in a well-to-do Jewish merchant's family. She attended a girls' high school before completing a course in teacher training. After first working in a Jewish school in the Hamburg suburb of Altona, she was employed by the Hamburg school authority until her retirement. In 1893, together with Gustav Tuch, she founded the ''Israelitisch-Humanitären Frauenverein'' (Israelite Humanitarian Women's Association) which she chaired from 1908 until her death, supporting activities for children and women. In parallel, she was a strong proponent of

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and Entitlement (fair division), entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st c ...

, supporting professional qualifications for women and encouraging them to participate in commercial and political activities. In 1904, together with Bertha Pappenheim, she founded the German League of Jewish Women where she campaigned for

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...

and fought against the trafficking of girls. She represented the organization both in Germany and abroad. In 1923, at the

First World Congress of Jewish Women The First World Congress of Jewish Women was held in Vienna, Austria, from 6 to 11 May 1923. It brought together some 200 delegates from over 20 countries. Zionism was a prominent topic, while emigration to Palestine for Jewish refugees was discus ...

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, she gave a detailed presentation of the development of organizations for Jewish women in Germany, describing their activities in regard to support for women and children. She explained that there were some 230 women's organizations attached to the League of Jewish Women, with a total membership of 45,000. On 4 June 1929, as chair of the Hamburg Women's Association (''Hamburger Frauenverein''), Werner opened the Second World Congress of Jewish Women which was held in Hamburg. Werner established a considerable number of facilities for Jewish women and children over the years. These included a girls' home in Hamburg (1906), a children's home in

Bad Segeberg Bad Segeberg (; ) is a German town of 16,000 inhabitants, located in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, capital of the district (Kreis) Segeberg. It is situated approximately northeast of Hamburg, and west of Lübeck. It is famous for its annual ...

(1908), a children's home in Altona (1910), as well as several buildings in Bad Segeberg's Bismarckallee for children and mother care. In the late 1920s, she established a home for sick children in Wyk (1927), extending the facility in 1929. It was destroyed by fire in 1938. On the political front, representing the

German Democratic Party The German Democratic Party (, DDP) was a liberal political party in the Weimar Republic, considered centrist or centre-left. Along with the right-liberal German People's Party (, DVP), it represented political liberalism in Germany between 19 ...

, she was a candidate for the city elections in 1919 but was not elected. Sidonie Werner died in

on 27 December 1932.

Tribute

On March 16, 2021,

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

celebrated her 161st birthday with a

Google Doodle Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running annual Bu ...

References

{{authority control 1860 births 1932 deaths 19th-century German educators 19th-century German Jews 19th-century German women educators 20th-century German educators 20th-century German Jews 20th-century German women educators German feminists German schoolteachers Jews from Hamburg Jewish German feminists Jewish women activists Politicians from Hamburg