Writing

Content type
Collection
Collage of Jewish Women Who Died in 2023

Jewish Women Whose Memories I’m Carrying into 2024

Judith Rosenbaum

The year 2023 brought the deaths of several powerful and influential Jewish women, whose insights and voices changed the world and are all the more painful to lose in this difficult time. 

Collage of open book, torn paper, and Jewish star

Reading Beyond Holocaust Literature: Prioritizing Jewish Joy

Halleli Abrams Gerber

Learning about the Shoah became a constant as I explored my local libraries. This sent me the message that Jewishness was inextricably linked to suffering. What if it wasn't?

Topics: Fiction, Holocaust

Joan Nestle

Joan Nestle is an activist, writer, and educator known for her work on lesbian identity, sexuality, culture, and history, among other topics. Nestle also co-founded the New York-based Lesbian Herstory Archives, the largest lesbian-focused archive in the world, in 1975. Her essays and stories, which she began writing in the late 1970s, have been published in three anthologies.

Sarah Groustra Headshot 2023

Where Are They Now? RVF Alum Sarah Groustra

Sarah Biskowitz

JWA chats with Sarah Groustra for our series of interviews with Rising Voices Fellowship alums to mark the 10th anniversary of the fellowship. 

Topics: Non-Fiction, Plays
Headshot of woman with long dark blonde hair and book cover reading "Death Valley by Melissa Broder" in pink with image of eye on top of cactus

Grief is a Desert in 'Death Valley'

Abby Richmond

The poignant and often hilarious novel made me consider my own experiences with grief and (metaphorical) lostness.

Topics: Fiction, Theology, Ritual
Young woman sitting surrounded by signs: "Protect kids, not guns!" and "Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. How about you fucking do something?"

Where Are They Now? RVF Alum Ilana Goldberg

Sarah Biskowitz

JWA chats with Ilana Goldberg for our series of interviews with Rising Voices Fellowship alums to mark the 10th anniversary of the fellowship. 

Young woman with brown curly hair and glasses wearing dark gray shirt and posing in front of trees

Where Are They Now? RVF Alum Hannah Elbaum

Sarah Biskowitz

The first in our series of interviews with RVF alums to mark the 10th anniversary of the fellowship. 

Collage of stack of books superimposed over antique printed paper

Understanding My Identity Through Books

Aria Lynn-Skov

Every day I find new books to read, and I know that they will continue to help expand my understanding of my own identity, and of the world around me.

Topics: Fiction, Non-Fiction
Sarah Lightman and Book Cover

Q & A with Sarah Lightman, Co-Editor of "Jewish Women in Comics: Bodies and Borders"

Rachael Davis

JWA talks with Sarah Lightman, co-editor of the new book, Jewish Women in Comics: Bodies and Borders. 

Topics: Non-Fiction

Episode 97: Golda Reconsidered

Golda Meir is known as Israel's "Iron Lady": gruff, chain-smoking, and fiercely ambitious. In the eyes of many, she was also responsible for the Yom Kippur War, which cost thousands of lives. But Golda's story is far more complex.

In this episode of Can We Talk?, as we approach 50 years since the Yom Kippur War, we go beyond the caricatures and talk about aspects of Golda's career that are often overlooked: the ways she helped build the fledgling state of Israel, her relationship with Israel’s Mizrahim, and her complicated attitude toward feminism. We speak with Guy Nattiv, director of the new film Golda, starring Helen Mirren, and with author Francine Klagsbrun, whose biography of Golda, Lioness, came out in 2017. 

Image shows book cover reading "Places we Left Behind - A Memoir-in-Miniature" with the authors name, Jennifer Lang, on an open cardboard box; right hand side shows woman with brown hair and glasses standing ourdoors

Q & A with Jennifer Lang, Author of "Places We Left Behind"

Jodie Sadowsky

JWA chats with author Jennifer Lang about her forthcoming book, Places We Left Behind: a memoir in miniature. 

Topics: Marriage, Memoirs, Israel
Sara Lippman Headshot

Q & A With Author Sara Lippmann

Sarah Groustra

JWA talks to author Sara Lippmann about suburbia as an irresistible setting for fiction, radical retellings of the Torah, and more. 

Topics: Fiction, Rabbis, Bible
Zia Saylor Reading - cropped

Add One (or More) of these Graphic Novels to Your Summer Reading List

Zia Saylor

Add one of these graphic novels with badass female heroines to your summer reading list. 

Topics: Fiction
Collage of hand holding pen to paper on blue to orange gradient background

Writing as a Jewish Woman: Recording, Communicating, Counting

Samantha Berk

Being a Jewish woman means writing about what matters to me, and what I hope could matter to you. 

Topics: Writing, Family
Collage of torn magazine photographs and flowers

To My Fellow RVF Fellows

Aviva Schilowitz

On the surface, our Rising Voices Fellowship has been about Jewish feminism, thought, and writing. But, to me, it was also about the power of words.

Topics: Writing, Feminism
Mónica Gomery Headshot Cropped

Q & A with Poet and Rabbi Mónica Gomery

Sarah Groustra

JWA chats with poet and rabbi Mónica Gomery about her newest poetry collection, Might Kindred

Helen Epstein

Born to two Holocaust survivors from Czechoslovakia, Helen Epstein has spent her life building an impressive journalistic career. She has also explored her own lived experiences, as well as the repercussions of intergenerational trauma from the Holocaust, on both her own family and the families of other survivors, in several memoirs and non-fiction books.

Stack of books against collage of the Ukrainian and Russian flags

The Enemy is Putin, Not Pushkin: Literature and Free Expression during the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Nora Auburn

Masha Gessen’s departure from PEN is about artist versus art institution, colonial power versus subject, and the paradoxical notion of uplifting some voices by silencing others.

Episode 95: Word of the Week: Shiksa

From Portnoy’s Complaint to Seinfeld, the word “shiksa” is firmly embedded in popular culture. Where does the word come from, and how has its meaning changed over time? In this episode, we’re bringing back our “Word of the Week,” feature, where we dig into one word and explore how it relates to Jewish women. Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath, Keren McGinity, and Kylie Ora Lobell give us their takes.

Nicki Newman Tanner

Project
General

Gail Reimer interviewed Nicki Newman Tanner on August 24th, 2007, in Scarsdale New York. Nicki discusses her early life in Chicago, her experiences at Wellesley College, her career in Los Angeles, and her involvement in various leadership roles, including the board at Colonial Williamsburg, JWA, and HUC, as well as her Jewish identity and community engagement.

Gila Axelrod

7 Questions For Gila Axelrod

Sarah Groustra

JWA talks to Gila Axelrod, writer, educator, and editor-in-chief of New Voices.

Maria the Jewess

Maria the Jewess was one of the founding practitioners in western alchemy, in the 1st–3rd centuries CE. She invented several types of chemical apparatus, ran a school of alchemy in Alexandria, Egypt, and was noted for her alchemical sayings. She is the earliest recorded Jewish woman to have published a book.

Bookshelves collaged on orange patterned background

The Future of the Jewish-American Literary Canon

Irene Y. Raich

The Jewish-American literary canon is not only dismissive of women but hostile to them, and this is insidious and damaging to the narrative we tell as Jews and women.

Topics: Publishing, Fiction
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret film still: girl with hands clasped in prayer,

A Coming-Of-Age Story for Every Generation

Sarah Jae Leiber

The film, like the book on which it’s based, acknowledges that sixth-grade feelings are among the realest we ever feel.

Topics: Film, Fiction, Children
Collage of newspapers clippings

The Future of Judaism in Journalism

Rosie Yanowitch

When I look at my American Jewish identity, I find that news from the Jewish community, and in particular, the Jewish feminist movement, continue to be underrepresented and under-publicized.

Topics: Journalism, Writing

Donate

Help us elevate the voices of Jewish women.

donate now

Get JWA in your inbox

Read the latest from JWA from your inbox.

sign up now