Yonata Feldman "with Mrs. Bell, ready
for a call to service to the Comstock
team" at the Smith School for Social
Work baseball game, July 4, 1957

Yonata Feldman served on the faculty of the Smith College School for Social Work for many years. She was born in 1892 in Estonia and studied at the Imperial University of Jurjew; her education was interrupted when the Germans invaded Russia in 1912. Before emigrating to the United States, she taught at, and was principal of, an elementary school in Estonia. She earned her M.A. from the Chicago University School of Social Service Administration in 1923, specializing in the treatment of emotionally disturbed children. From 1923 to 1928 Feldman was a social worker at the Chicago Jewish Children's Bureau, and from 1925 to 1928 also worked with disturbed children at the Chicago Institute for Juvenile Research. From 1928 to 1961, she was employed at the Madeleine Borg Child Guidance Institute of the Jewish Board of Guardians in New York City, working her way up from caseworker to casework supervisor to "boro" supervisor. In 1950, she joined the faculty of the Smith College School for Social Work where she served until 1974. Throughout her career, she conducted seminars and institutes for various institutions and professional groups, among them Western Reserve University, The College of William and Mary, Mt. Sinai Hospital, the Presbyterian Hospital of the New York Medical Center, Lebanon Hospital and the Board of Education of the City of New York. She also served as case consultant for numerous institutions, social work agencies, and case workers in private practice. She died on August 28, 1981 in New York, NY.