Writing

Dorothy Miller Zellner

As co-editor of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s newsletter, the Student Voice, Dorothy Miller Zellner helped craft the organization’s message and report on stories suppressed by the mainstream media.

Carol Ruth Silver

Carol Ruth Silver was one of the first two white women to be jailed in the Freedom Rides, an experience that sparked a career in law and politics, fighting for the rights of others.

Debra L. Schultz

Debra Schultz served as an advisor to the Jewish Women’s Archive in creating the Living the Legacy curriculum based on research she had done on the history of Jewish women in the civil rights movement.

SNCC Southwest Georgia Project Members Agnew James, Penny Patch, Faith S. Holsaert, Larry Rubin, and Charles Sherrod

Faith Holsaert

Faith Holsaert was one of the first white women field workers for the civil rights movement in the south, volunteering for voter registration in one of the worst counties in Georgia.

Bernice Sains Freid

Bernice Sains Freid called her time in WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) during WWII “the happiest days of my life.”

May 13, 2014

Pronouns and Progressivism: Nothing Is Easy

Marissa Harrington-Verb

The Rising Voices Fellowship was an experience unlike any other I’ve had before. It offered new insights on so many areas of life: feminism, Judaism, writing, working with others, personal growth, community... and I could go on. Needless to say, I’ve learned more things this year than I can list. But I can still offer a small sample...

Topics: Feminism, LGBTQIA Rights, Writing

May 13, 2014

A Teen Blogger's Reflections

Olivia Link

I honestly had no clue what type of psychological boot camp I signed up for when I agreed to participate in JWA’s Rising Voices blog. This was nothing like the physical endurance that I face at school when I dance; writing for the Fellowship has carved every possible theme, issue, and interest that could be put into a blog post out of my cranium. Yes, we fellows technically had a month to write our pieces, but for perfectionists like me, this was nothing!

Topics: Feminism, Writing

May 7, 2014

Seeking Out the Untold Stories

Eden Marcus

I didn’t expect much when I first joined the Rising Voices Fellowship—I thought I’d meet some fellow writers and have a good time blogging. Yes, both of those things ended up happening for me, but I ended up getting so much more out of the fellowship than I had originally expected. I’ve participated in many meaningful activities, but joining the Rising Voices Fellowship was one of my favorites. I’ve been able to explore who I am as a writer and as a Jewish feminist.

Topics: Feminism, Writing

May 2, 2014

How Joining a Community of Writers Changed Me

Avigayil Halpern

Before this year, I had always viewed writing as a solitary process. I wrote alone, revised little and only sought feedback after a piece was complete. Rising Voices has given me the gift of community both inside and outside of the Fellowship—writing has become a collaborative process and I and my work are better for it. I’ve learned three primary lessons in this area from my peers, from my teachers, from my editors, and from my friends.

Topics: Writing

Naomi Weisstein

Naomi Weisstein’s career ran the gamut from feminist rock musician to groundbreaking psychologist to stand-up comedian.

Savina Teubal

Savina Teubal created space for Jewish women to participate in holidays and rituals, and created a powerful new tradition to recognize her own rite of passage from adult to elder.

Meredith Tax

Meredith Tax used her writing both to highlight the tremendous upheaval of her own times and to reimagine the struggles of suffragists and union organizers.

Sheryl Baron Nestel

Sheryl Baron Nestel’s activism in the childbirth reform movement led to her investigation of how race and racism affect healthcare.

Cheryl Moch

Long before gay marriage became a reality, Cheryl Moch dared to dream a gay marriage fairy tale.

Deena Metzger

Deena Metzger’s iconic portrait, “The Warrior,” changed the way we look at surviving breast cancer.

Loolwa Khazzoom

A pioneer of the Jewish multicultural movement, Loolwa Khazoom helped promote Sephardic and Mizrahi culture and priorities within the larger Jewish community.

Evelyn Fox Keller

Evelyn Fox Keller’s work in gender, biology, and the history of science led her to question the gendered metaphors and assumptions of biologists and sociologists, which often blinded them to basic scientific facts.

Susannah Heschel

As a scholar and author, Susannah Heschel has explored issues of Jewish feminism and 19th and 20th century German Jewish history.

Nancy Miriam Hawley

Nancy Miriam Hawley helped found the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, Inc., the organization responsible for writing the best seller Our Bodies, Ourselves, which empowered women to take control of their own health care.

Rivka Haut

An Orthodox Jewish feminist, Rivka Haut advocated on behalf of agunot (chained wives) and wrote feminist prayers for Orthodox Jews.

Gloria Greenfield

Disturbed by growing anti-Semitism in the women’s movement, Gloria Greenfield left the movement and began creating documentary films that brought national attention to anti-Semitism in America and around the world.

Lynn Gottlieb

One of the first ten women rabbis, Lynn Gottlieb became a voice for peace between Jews and Muslims.

V

Eve Ensler’s massively successful play The Vagina Monologues gave her a platform to launch V-Day, a campaign to end violence against women and girls.

Ophira Edut

At the age of nineteen, Ophira Edut helped launch HUES, a magazine that embraced diversity and depicted young women as strong, smart, stylish, and playful.

April 29, 2014

Rising through the Year

Hannah Elbaum

As my year in the Rising Voices Fellowship comes to a close, it is time to look back on the experience and look forward to my next adventures as a student, a writer, and a teenager. RVF has allowed me to explore Judaism, feminism and blogging in ways I never have before. I have learned many small and meaningful lessons over this year, but I found the most important material taught about writing—and life—that I learned from Rising Voices fit neatly into three parts: looking back, living in the present, and moving forward.