Writing

Content type
Collection
A-WA
November 2, 2022

Happy Mizrahi Heritage Month!

Jen Richler

Celebrate Mizrahi Heritage Month by checking out some of our favorite JWA content by and about Mizrahi women. 

Topics: Photography, Fiction, Feminism
Outlined drawings of hamsa, pomegranate, and candles over blue background with pens
October 9, 2022

Writing My Jewish Magical Realism

Sofia Isaias-Day

My two identities and their literary traditions, Torah and magical realism, work together to shape my writing style.

Topics: Fiction, Ritual
Mindy Portnoy

Mindy Portnoy

Project
Washington D.C. Stories

Deborah Ross interviewed Rabbi Mindy Portnoy on November 9, 2010, in Washington, DC, as part of the Washington D.C. Stories Oral History Project. Rabbi Portnoy shares her personal journey and observations as a female rabbi, her motivations for entering the rabbinate, her perceptions of women in this new position, and her responses to challenges during a transformative period in Jewish life.

Joan Nathan

Joan Nathan

Project
Washington D.C. Stories

Deborah Ross interviewed Joan Nathan on July 12, 2011, in Washington, DC, as part of the Washington D.C. Stories Oral History Project. Nathan reflects on the significance of food to Jewish life, as she recounts her career as a cookbook author, cultural historian, and food writer who combines recipes with stories to educate about Jewish life, tradition, and history.

Cover of Uncultured book and co-authors of book
September 15, 2022

During Shmita, Finally Learning to Let Go

Brandi Larsen

In the year after co-writing a memoir, also the year of shmita, I learned how to let go of my failures and begin anew. 

Topics: Memoirs, Rosh Hashanah, Ritual
Shmutz Book Cover by Felicia Berliner
September 13, 2022

“Shmutz” Subverts the Traditional Ex-Orthodoxy Narrative

Chanel Dubofsky

Felicia Berliner's debut novel Shmutz upends the notion of a binary choice so frequently seen in literature concerning Jews living unhappily in insular communities.

Topics: Fiction, Judaism-Orthodox
A group of people in three rows in front of a bookstore.
September 8, 2022

Interview with Stella Levy, The Only Woman at City Lights Bookstore

Emma Breitman

JWA talks with Stella Levy about her appearance in an iconic photo from the 1960s, and how things have changed for women in the literary world since then. 

Topics: Poetry, Feminism, Photography
Sam Cohen headshot and book cover

Sam Cohen

Sam Cohen, author of Sarahland, which brilliantly and often hilariously explores the ways in which traditional stories have failed us, both demanding and providing new origin stories for its cast of Sarahs, new ways to love the planet and those inhabiting it, and new possibilities for life itself on August 11, 2022.

New Yorker cartoonist, Roz Chast stands in front of mural

Roz Chast

One of New York’s most distinct Jewish cultural voices, Roz Chast is most famous for her New Yorker cartoons over the past four decades. Her works range from whimsical, irreverent, and quirky to poignant and heartbreaking, and she is widely considered one of the most comically ingenious and satirically edgy visual interpreters of everyday life.

Courtney Zoffness Headshot and Book Cover

Courtney Zoffness

Courtney Zoffness, author of Spilt Milk: Memoirs, which considers what we inherit from generations past―biologically, culturally, spiritually―and what we pass on to our children on August 4, 2022.

Siona Benjamin

Siona Benjamin

Siona Benjamin, contributor to Growing Up Jewish in India: From the Bene Israel to the Art of Siona Benjamin, about the Jewish communities of India, and illustrator of the children’s book I Am Hava, a story about the world’s most famous Jewish song—as told by the song herself on July 28, 2022.

Molly Cone

Molly Cone

Project
Weaving Women's Words

Roz Bornstein interviewed Molly Cone on May 22, 2001, in Seattle, Washington, as part of the Weaving Women’s Words Oral History Project. Cone recounts her family's immigration history, childhood in Tacoma, Washington, feeling different as a minority, education, writing career, marriage, raising children, Jewish holidays, and her passion for travel, including visits to Israel.

Rachel Barenbaum headshot and book cover

Rachel Barenbaum

Rachel Barenbaum, author of Atomic Anna, an epic adventure as three generations of women work together and travel through time to prevent the Chernobyl disaster and right the wrongs of their past on July 22, 2022.

Collage with Wallpaper of Illustrated Pens, Illustrated Fists in the Air in the Foreground
July 15, 2022

Six Months After Colleyville: The Power of Journalism and (Less So) Running

Ilah

Discouraged and still reeling from the events of the past weekend, I took the story of Colleyville and the continued hatred against Jewish individuals in this country to our school newspaper.

Topics: Antisemitism, Writing

Episode 78: Word of the Week: Gaslighting

Movie Still from "Ghost World", 2001: Image of Scarlett Johansson and Thora Birch
June 10, 2022

"Ghost World": Flawed Portrayals of Flawed Jewish Women

Lucy Waldorf

Ghost World is satirical, but is that fact enough to excuse the writing of the Jewish female characters?

Topics: Feminism, Television, Fiction, Antisemitism

Episode 77: Word of the Week: Yenta

Rain Pryor, 1993

Rain Pryor’s One-Woman Play “Fried Chicken and Latkes” Earns NAACP Theatre Award

February 21, 2005

On February 21, 2005, Jewish comedian, actress, singer, and writer Rain Pryor received an NAACP Theatre Award for her one-woman autobiographical play, “Fried Chicken and Latkes.” In the play, Pryor explores her experiences with racism growing up Black and Jewish in Beverly Hills, CA, as well as her complex relationship with her father, the late comedian Richard Pryor.

Carly Manes and the cover of her book What's An Abortion, Anyway?
May 4, 2022

Interview with Carly Manes, author of "What’s An Abortion, Anyway?"

Chanel Dubofsky

We spoke with Carly Manes about Jewish faith and abortion, the obstacles in getting the book into the world, and how Jewish communities can support the fight for reproductive justice.

Topics: Reproductive Rights, Law, Women's Rights, Non-Fiction

Episode 75: Eleanor Reissa's Invisible Birthmark

Eleanor Reissa and the Cover of her Book

Episode 75: Eleanor Reissa's Invisible Birthmark

Listen Now

After a career spent telling other people's stories, Eleanor Reissa has finally uncovered her own. It started with 56 letters she found in a drawer while cleaning out her late mother's apartment. They were letters from her father to her mother, just a few years after they had both survived World War II. The letters sent Eleanor on a search to retrace her family history in Europe, which she chronicles in her new memoir, The Letters Project: A Daughter's Journey. In this episode of Can We Talk?, Nahanni Rous talks with Eleanor about how her life has been defined by being the daughter of people who lived through the Holocaust.

Julia Watts Belser

Publication of Julia Watts Belser’s "Rabbinic Tales of Destruction: Gender, Sex, and Disability in the Ruins of Jerusalem"

January 4, 2018

On January 4, 2018, Julia Watts Belser, a scholar who applies the lenses of gender, sexuality, disability, and ecology to Jewish texts, published her book Rabbinic Tales of Destruction: Gender, Sex, and Disability in the Ruins of Jerusalem.

Ennis Bashe and the cover of their book Scheme of Sorcery.
March 31, 2022

Interview with Disabled, Non-Binary, Jewish Poet and Novelist Ennis Bashe

Jen Richler

JWA talks to Ennis Bashe about how their different identities intersect, and what they want every disabled and able-bodied person to know.

Topics: Activism, Fiction, LGBTQIA Rights
Collage of "Our Bodies, Ourselves" Book Covers
March 16, 2022

"Our Bodies, Ourselves" in 2022

Sofia Isaias-Day

As a Jewish feminist, I have a responsibility to further the movement started by the writers of Our Bodies, Ourselves.

Topics: Reproductive Rights, Writing, Feminism
Tova Ricardo at a spoken word performance at a conference in 2021.
February 17, 2022

I’m a Black Jewish Woman and I’m Tired of Being Called “Angry”

Tova Ricardo

I refuse to choose between being a “good woman” or a woman who will not be intimidated, belittled, or silenced.

Topics: Civil Rights, Feminism, Antisemitism, Poetry

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