Rosa Ginossar

Rosa Ginossar (1890–1979) was an Israeli lawyer and women's rights activist. She was the second woman lawyer in Mandatory Palestine, after Freda Slutzkin ) and the first practicing female attorney in Israel. She was president of the Women's International Zionist Organization from 1966 to 1970.

Biography Rosa Hacohen (later Ginzburg Ginnosar) was born on July 14, 1890, in Gomel, Belorussia, daughter to the writer Mordecai ben Hillel Hacohen. She immigrated to pre-State Palestine with her family in 1907, where she studied law.

Rosa met her future husband, Shlomo Ginzberg (later Hebraized to Ginossar) through the friendship between her father and Ahad Ha'am (Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginzberg), a Zionist leader and writer. In 1908, Shlomo came to Palestine and stayed with the Hacohen family. He persuaded Rosa to go with him to study at the University of Paris, which she graduated from with a law diploma on October 19, 1913.

During World War I, she stayed with her parents in Tel Aviv, but in 1917, she and Shlomo married in Switzerland and they moved to her father-in-law's house in London for four years. While there she came into contact with many Zionists, and she and her husband became involved with the movement.

Authorities were at the same time hurrying to pass a draft ordinance from 1925 which was meant "to restrict women from appearing before Muslim, religious, and tribal courts and to bar them from various legal occupations."

In 1951, she was elected Chairwoman of WIZO. She became Acting President in 1963 and President from 1966 to 1970.

Awards and recognition Rosa Ginossar became Honorary President of the World WIZO in 1970 and an Honorary Citizen of Jerusalem in 1974.