Sharon Fahrer, a local historian, presented “Asheville’s Jewish Women” in honor of Women’s History Month March 15 in Ferguson Auditorium. The program discussed the role of women in Judaism and women who have been recognized both within the Jewish community and/ or by the Asheville community as a whole, including Shirley Cohen, a Buncombe County treasure and an active member of Autumn Players theater and Connie Learner, the first Jewish Miss North Carolina in 1970.
Of the three Jewish mayors Asheville has had, two were women, including the current mayor Esther Manheimer. Leni Sitnick also had the distinction of being Asheville’s first woman mayor, according to Fahrer.
Pictured on the screen behind Fahrer is Sprinza Weizenblatt, an eye doctor who came to Asheville in 1928 from Vienna.