Claire Goll’s poetry and prose were fueled by the tragedies and scandals that shaped her life. She and her husband, writer Yvan Goll, were central cultural figures of the French avant-garde, and her prolific body of work includes journalism, multiple novels, short fiction, and numerous translations of other authors’ works.

Anna Maria Goldsmid was a Victorian Jewish advocate of women’s education and Jewish emancipation who made a name for herself as a translator, lecturer, philanthropist, and poet.

A passionate idealist, Mire Gola organized anti-German resistance in World War II as a Communist in occupied Poland. She inspired others with her eloquent poetry and her fortitude through imprisonment and torture.

Writer and poet Karen Gershon escaped the Holocaust by being sent to England on the Kindertransport. Her best-known book, We Came as Children (1966), documented the collective experiences of refugee children and established her literary reputation in England. Her introspective poetry often reflects on her family and the Holocaust.

Literature by American Jewish women reflects historical trends in American Jewish life and indicates the changing issues facing writers who worked to position themselves as Americans, Jews, and women.

Marcia Falk is a poet, translator, and liturgist whose knowledge of the Bible and of Hebrew and English literature informs the feminist spiritual vision of her work. She is widely considered one of the foremothers of, and foremost contributors to, the Jewish feminist movement.

After making Aliyah in 1925, Elisheva Bichovsky (born in Russia as Elizaveta Zhirkova), helped shape the Yishuv’s literary scene as one of Palestine’s first Hebrew poets. Her 1926 Kos Ketannah and 1929 Simta’ot were, respectively, the first poetry collection and first novel written by a woman to be published in Palestine.

Celia Dropkin’s sexually explicit poetry expanded possibilities for the depiction of relationships between men and women in modern Yiddish poetry. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, her poems appeared in avant-garde Yiddish literary publications. Infused with erotic energy, the themes of Dropkin’s poetry – sex, love, and death – shocked her contemporaries.

Stella Drabkin was a talented painter and mosaicist who innovated new methods of printmaking. She is known for her experiments with multitype, a variation on monotype printing with layers of texture and color, creating mosaic panels on biblical themes, and creating prints with poems. Following her death, in 1972 the Art Alliance established the Stella Drabkin Memorial Award Fund in her honor. 

A determined and talented performer, Selina Dolaro raised four children alone while pursuing an illustrious acting and singing career in late nineteenth-century England and America. Dolaro performed in various London operas, most notably as the title role in the first English version of Carmen. She made her American debut as Carmen in 1879.

Esther Dischereit, a German-Jewish writer living in Berlin, speaks for the second and third generation of children of Holocaust survivors. Her prolific production covers all genres, including prose, poetry, sound installations, and concept art. She uses her many talents to fight anti-semitism and racism and to give a voice to the persecuted and forgotten.

Babette Deutsch, born and raised in New York City, was a gifted poet, novelist, translator, and educator. In her work, she interwove elements of vastly different cultures and times, from the Bible and Shakespeare to Russian and Japanese literature. She often used her work to explore Jewish themes and culture.

Maya Deren pursued an ambitious career as a writer, publishing poetry, essays, and newspaper articles. She was also one of the most important avant-garde filmmakers of her time for her use of experimental editing techniques and her fascination with ecstatic religious dances. In 1946 she used a Guggenheim Fellowship to photograph Haitian dance.

Jewish-Algerian-French writer Hélène Cixous published her first book in 1967 and approximately her eighty-seventh in February 2021. This “life writing” comprises poetic fiction and autobiography, literary and feminist theory, art criticism, and theatrical works. Cixous explores the myriad contradictions and consequences of loss and exile, of “being Jewish” and “being a woman.”

From poetry to the probing of women’s eating disorders, from autobiography to the story of a voice, from commentary on sexual identity to Israel and Palestine, Kim Chernin’s writing, “writing consultation,” and pastoral counseling practices all arose from the “spiritual politics” and deep examination of self and society that she considered the essence of her Jewishness.

Women were among the earliest settles in the Dutch and English Caribbean. Early Caribbean Jewish women, despite living in patriarchal societies, still managed to engage in public pursuits. As Caribbean Jewish communities became increasingly racially blended over time, women of color became some of the most definitive architects of distinctly Creole Caribbean Jewry.

In her fiction, Rosellen Brown confronted themes of alienation, responsibility for others, and racial tension in America. Brown is known for the passion and insight she brings to the page as a poet, essayist, and fiction writer.