The Woman in the Room

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>Born into a poor immigrant family Naomi B. Levine grew up in the Bronx and on Manhattan's storied Lower East Side in an era when women were not encouraged to have lives of their own. Nevertheless she managed to raise herself to prominence as a leader of Jewish affairs champion of civil rights and expert fundraiser.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>Poignant direct and inflected with Yiddishkeit </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>The Woman in the Room</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)> is the story of how Levine went from living in a crowded tenement with a shared bathroom to penning an amicus brief that was crucial in </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>Brown v. Board of Education</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)> assuming the Executive Directorship of the American Jewish Congress and saving NYU from bankruptcy with the first billion-dollar capital campaign for a university.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>A lover of history Levine describes not just her life but also articulates how the major historical events of the time emboldened her to take social and political positions that were in many circles unacceptable. She was an activist and a feminist before those concepts became part of our everyday parlance. </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)>The Woman in the Room</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(51 51 51 1)> not only illuminates the decades Levine lived but furnishes future generations with the strength and courage to face the challenges before them.</span></p>