Rosa Ginossar

Rosa Ginossar was born in 1890 in Gomel

Rosa Hacohen was born on July 14, 1890, in Gomel, the daughter of the writer Mordecai ben Hillel Hacohen. She grew up in a Zionist home with a Hebrew education. In 1906 she went to Odessa to study at a gymnasium.

Her parents moved to the Land of Israel in 1907, and she joined them in 1908. That year Shlomo Ginzberg, son of Ahad Ha'am, persuaded her to study law in Paris. She received her law diploma on October 19, 1913.

In 1917 she and Shlomo married in Switzerland and lived in Ahad Ha'am's house in London for 4 years. There she became active in the Zionist movement and was the first Honorary Secretary of WIZO, founded in 1920. The couple returned to the Land of Israel in 1922.

The British authorities twice refused to let her take the bar exam, saying the term for lawyer covered only men. She took her case to the High Court of Justice, which ruled for women's right to be lawyers on February 15, 1930. She received her license on July 26, 1930, and opened her own practice in Jerusalem, handling cases of immigrants, women and children.

She practiced law until 1949, when her husband became Israel's first ambassador to Italy. She served on the boards of the World Zionist Organization and Youth Aliyah and led WIZO's campaign for women's right to hold public office. She died on January 10, 1979, in Jerusalem.