Shoshana Gershonowitz

Shoshana Gershonowitz was born in 1906 in Russia

Gershonowitz was born in 1906 east of Minsk, under the name Rosa, into a family of 7 children. Her father was a timber merchant who died young. As the eldest daughter, she was sent to the Land of Israel in 1925 to prepare the family's immigration, and she settled in Jerusalem.

She joined the Haganah in 1929 and worked as a laboratory assistant at the Hebrew University. During World War II she was among the first 66 women volunteers in the British Army's women's service. She finished the first officers' course for women of the Yishuv in 1942, commanded a unit of women drivers in Egypt, served in Italy with the Jewish Brigade and left as a captain.

In late 1947 she set up the women's unit in Jerusalem, and she helped build the Women's Corps with Sara Braverman. She was deputy to Mina Ben-Zvi, the first commander of the corps, and later commanded the women in the Nahal. As chief Women's Corps officer until 1959, she worked for the rights of women soldiers and helped create a nursing course in the IDF.

After leaving the army she served in Washington, D.C., as attachée for liaison with women's organizations. In 1958 she appeared on the American quiz show What's My Line?, and the panel failed to guess her job. She died in 1986.