Bella Abzug

Early life

Bella Savitzky was born on July 24, 1920 in New York City. Both of her parents were Russian Jewish immigrants. Her mother, Esther (née Tanklefsky), was a homemaker, and her father, Emanuel Savitzky, ran the Live and Let Live Meat Market. Even in her youth, she was competitive and would beat everyone, including the boys in all sorts of competitions.

When her father died, Abzug, then 13, was told that her orthodox synagogue did not permit women to say the (mourners') Kaddish, since that rite was reserved for sons of the deceased. However, because her father had no sons, she went to the synagogue every morning for a year to recite the prayer, defying the tradition of her orthodox congregation.

Abzug graduated from Walton High School in New York City, where she was class president, and went on to Hunter College of the City University of New York, later earning a law degree from Columbia University in 1947. She then went on to do further post-graduate work at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

Legal and political career

Abzug was admitted to the New York Bar in 1947, and started practicing in New York City at the firm of Pressman, Witt & Cammer, particularly in matters of labor law. She became an attorney in the 1940s, a time when very few women practiced law. Early on, she took on civil rights cases in the South. She appealed the case of Willie McGee, a black man convicted in 1945 of raping a white woman in Laurel, Mississippi and sentenced to death by an all-white jury who deliberated for only two-and-a-half minutes. Abzug lost the appeal and the man was executed. Abzug was an outspoken advocate of liberal causes, including the failed Equal Rights Amendment, and opposition to the Vietnam War.

Years before she was elected to the House of Representatives, she was a co-founder of Women Strike for Peace. Her political stands placed her on the master list of Nixon political opponents. Nicknamed "Battling Bella", in 1970, she challenged the 14-year incumbent, Leonard Farbstein, in the Democratic primary for a congressional district on Manhattan's West Side. She defeated Farbstein in a considerable upset, and then defeated talk show host Barry Farber in the general election. In 1972, her district was eliminated via redistricting and she chose to run against William Fitts Ryan, who also represented part of the West Side, in the Democratic primary. Ryan, although seriously ill, defeated Abzug. However, Ryan died before the general election and Abzug defeated his widow, Priscilla, in a party convention to choose the new Democratic nominee. In the general election Priscilla Ryan challenged Abzug on the Liberal Party line, but was unsuccessful. In the general election she was reelected easily in 1974. For her last two terms, she represented part of The Bronx as well.

She was one of the first members of Congress to support gay rights, introducing the first federal gay rights bill, known as the Equality Act of 1974, with fellow Democratic New York City Representative, Ed Koch, a future mayor of New York City. She chaired historic hearings on government secrecy. She was chair of Subcommittee on Government Information and Individual Rights. She was voted by her colleagues the third most influential member of the House as reported in U.S. News & World Report. Often recognized by these vibrant hats, Bella reminded all who admired them: "It's what's under the hat that counts!"

Abzug's career in Congress ended with an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for the US Senate in 1976, when she narrowly lost to the more moderate Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who had served in both the Nixon and Ford Administrations as White House Urban Affairs Advisor, Counselor to the President, United States Ambassador to India, and United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Moynihan would go to serve four terms in that office.

Abzug was defeated in a four-way primary race for the Senate in 1976 by less than one percent. However, she was not mentioned in the news and the coverage was only about the male candidates. President Carter "appointed her chair of the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year and, later, co-chair of the National Advisory Commission for Women".

Abzug was a supporter of Zionism. As a young woman she was a member of the Socialist-Zionist youth movement of Hashomer Hatzair. In 1975 she led the fight against United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 (revoked in 1991 by resolution 46/86), which "determine[d] that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination".

Later life and death

Abzug never held elective office again after leaving the House, although she remained a high-profile figure and was again a candidate on multiple occasions. She was unsuccessful in her bid to be Mayor of New York City in 1977, as well as in attempts to return to the US House from the East Side of Manhattan in 1978, and from Westchester County, New York in 1986.

She authored two successful books, Bella: Ms. Abzug Goes to Washington and The Gender Gap, the latter co-authored with friend and colleague, Mim Kelber.

She continually devised innovative strategies to further her vision of equality and power for women in the United States and abroad. Abzug founded and ran several women's advocacy organizations, in 1979 Women U.S.A. and continued to lead feminist advocacy events, for example serving as grand marshal of the Women's Equality Day New York March on August 26, 1980.

In the last decade of her life, in the early 1990s, with colleague Mim Kelber, she co-founded the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), in their own words "a global women's advocacy organization working towards a just world that promotes and protects human rights, gender equality, and the integrity of the environment". As WEDO president, she became an influential leader at the United Nations and at UN world conferences, working to empower women around the globe. Among its early successes was the World Women's Congress for a Healthy Planet held in Miami in 1991, where 1,500 women from 83 countries produced the Women's Action Agenda 21. Extending its perspective into the next century, this is a blueprint for incorporating women's concerns into development and environmental decision-making at all levels.

Following through on her belief that women's direct participation is absolutely necessary for social change, Bella developed the Women's Caucus, which used new methods to get women involved in every phase of planning and development for UN conferences. The Women's Caucus analyzed documents, proposed gender-sensitive policies and language, and lobbied to advance the Women's Agenda for the 21st Century at the UN Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Bella and WEDO went on to play a leading role at the UN. They worked through the Women's Caucus to highlight issues of greatest concern to women in both ongoing policy-making and at major UN conferences, including the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. During UN conferences, governments would make commitments, promising to meet some of the goals furthered by the conference. WEDO developed strategies to monitor governments and make the results public.

During her last years, Bella kept up her busy schedule of travel and work, even though she traveled in a wheelchair. Bella led WEDO until her death, giving her final public speech before the UN in March 1998.

After battling breast cancer for a number of years, she developed heart disease and died on March 31, 1998 from complications following open heart surgery. She was 77. Abzug was interred at Old Mount Carmel Cemetery, Glendale, Queens County, New York. She was inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls and is the recipient of numerous prestigious national and international awards. A year before her death, Bella received the highest civilian recognition and honor at the U.N., the Blue Beret Peacekeepers Award.

She appeared in the WLIW video A Laugh, A Tear, A Mitzvah, as well as in Woody Allen's Manhattan (as herself), a 1977 episode of Saturday Night Live, and the documentary New York: A Documentary Film.

Family

From 1944 until his death in 1986, Congresswoman Abzug was married to Martin Abzug, whom she met on a bus in Miami on the way to a concert by Yehudi Menuhin. The couple had two children, Eve and Liz.

Legacy

In the pilot episode of 'Lou Grant'(1977), Joe Rossi gives the name of Bella Abzug when he first meets Lou.

In 1979, the Supersisters trading card set was produced and distributed; one of the cards featured Abzug's name and picture.

In 2004, her daughter Liz Abzug, an adjunct Urban Studies Professor at Barnard College and a political consultant, founded the Bella Abzug Leadership Institute (BALI) to mentor and train high school and college women to become effective leaders in civic, political, corporate and community life. To commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the first National Women's Conference, a ground-breaking event held in Houston in 1977 and over which Bella Abzug had presided, BALI hosted a National Women's Conference on the weekend of November 10–11, 2007, at Hunter College (NYC). Over 600 people from around the world attended. Besides celebrating the 1977 Conference, the 2007 agenda was to address significant women's issues for the 21st century.

In 1994 she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame and was honored, on March 6, 1997, at the United Nations as a leading female environmentalist. The following year, Ms. Magazine named her a role model.

In 2010, BALI hosted their 2nd Annual Bella and Bella Fella Awards Banquet. Notable winners of the awards include Gloria Steinem, Jennifer Raab, and Ken Sunshine.

The video "Bella Abzug: In Her Own Words" was produced by Progressive Source Communications for the Bella Abzug Leadership Institute.

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