Bella Abzug (; née Savitzky; July 24, 1920 – March 31, 1998), nicknamed "Battling Bella", was an American lawyer, politician, social activist, and a leader in the women's movement. In 1971, Abzug joined other leading feminists such as Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, and Betty Friedan to found the National Women's Political Caucus. She was a leading figure in what came to be known as ecofeminism.
In 1970, Abzug's first campaign slogan was, "This woman's place is in the House—the House of Representatives." She was later appointed to co-chair the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year created by President Gerald Ford's executive order, presided over the 1977 National Women's Conference, and led President Jimmy Carter's National Advisory Commission for Women. Abzug was a founder of the Commission for Women's Equality of the American Jewish Congress.
Bella Savitzky was born on July 24, 1920, in New York City. Both of her parents were Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants from Chernigov in the Russian Empire (now Chernihiv, Ukraine). Her mother, Esther (née Tanklevsky or Tanklefsky), was a homemaker who immigrated from Kozelets in 1902. Her father, Emanuel Savitzky, was a butcher who emigrated in 1906. He ran the Live and Let Live Meat Market on Ninth Avenue. Even in her youth, she was competitive and would beat other children in all sorts of competitions. She ran the cash register at her father's deli as a young girl.
Her religious upbringing influenced her development into a feminist. According to Abzug, "It was during these visits to the synagogue that I think I had my first thoughts as a feminist rebel. I didn't like the fact that women were consigned to the back rows of the balcony." 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 congregation's practice of Orthodox Judaism.
Abzug graduated from Walton High School in the Bronx, where she was class president. Through high school she took violin lessons and went to Florence Marshall Hebrew High School after classes at Walton. She went on to major in political science at Hunter College of the City University of New York and simultaneously attended the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. At Hunter College, she was student council president and active in the American Student Union. Abzug first met Mim Kelber, who would go on to co-found WEDO with her, at Walton High School and they went on to attend Hunter College with one another. She later earned a law degree from Columbia University in 1944.
Abzug was admitted to the New York Bar in 1945, at a time when very few women practiced law, and started her career in New York City at the firm of Pressman, Witt & Cammer, frequently working cases in matters of labor law.
As a lawyer, she specialized in labor rights, tenants' rights, and civil liberties cases. Early on, she took on civil rights cases in the Southern United States. 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 Equal Rights Amendment, and opposition to the Vietnam War as well as the military draft. She worked for the American Civil Liberties Union and the Civil Rights Congress.
Years before she was elected to the House of Representatives, she was an early participant in Women Strike for Peace. Her political stance placed her on the master list of Nixon's political opponents.
During the McCarthy era, she was one of the few legal attorneys willing to openly combat the House Un-American Activities Committee.
I've been described as a tough and noisy woman, a prizefighter, a man-hater, you name it. They call me Battling Bella.
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, at the party's convention to choose the new Democratic nominee. In the general election Priscilla Ryan challenged Abzug on the Liberal Party line, but was unsuccessful. 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, who later became mayor of New York. She also chaired historic hearings on government secrecy, being the chair for the Subcommittee on Government Information and Individual Rights. She was voted by her colleagues as the third most influential member of the House as reported in U.S. News & World Report.
She was the sponsor for the Equality Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) that made it unlawful to discriminate against any applicant, with respect to any aspect of a credit transaction, on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, or age. She was a cosponsor of H.R.13157 that established the Clara Barton National Historic Site, the first National Parks Site dedicated to the achievements of a woman.
She was frequently verbally abusive toward staff members, including referring to Doug Ireland as a "fat cocksucker."
Although hats were banned on the House floor, Abzug was known for her colorful and vibrant hats and was seldom seen without one. After being forced to remove her iconic hat before entering the House floor, Abzug once remarked that she felt "naked and unrecognizable." She famously reminded all who admired them: "It's what's under the hat that counts!"
In February 1975, Abzug was part of a bipartisan delegation sent to Saigon by President Gerald Ford to assess the situation on the ground in South Vietnam near the end of the Vietnam War.
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 challenged the 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." Abzug said about the topic, "Zionism is a liberation movement."
Abzug's career in Congress ended with an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in 1976, which she lost 1.09% to the more moderate Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who had served in both the Nixon and Ford Republican presidential 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 on to serve four terms in that office.