Project MUSE®: Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal

Project MUSE®: Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal - Latest Articles https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312 Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal. daily 1 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 text/html en-US Vol. 11 (2006) - vol.16, no. 1 (2011) Latest Articles: Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal TWO Project MUSE® Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal 1558-9552 1046-8358 Latest articles in Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal. Feed provided by Project MUSE® From the Editor https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436686 This 31st issue of Bridges celebrates 21 years of publishing Jewish feminist thought and creativity. This may well be Bridges last issue, though we haven't ruled out returning after a hiatus. I thought long and hard about what would be a fitting 20th anniversary issue theme or structure (so long, in fact, it had to become a "21st" anniversary issue). This collection of conversations between past contributors to Bridges evolved from several ideas, most of them born in my morning shower when possibility trumps nitty gritty. One idea was to do an issue focusing on feminist writer and artist mentoring relationships; another was soliciting nominations for a "best of Bridges" compilation. I spent last summer ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall From the Editor 2011-06-04 text/html en-US From the Editor 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 7613 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Felice Yeskel, z'l; A Remembrance: April 6, 1953 - Jan. 11, 2011 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436687 June 1978: Felice was 24, facilitating a tensely contested matter in the whole group meeting of EBACABI, the East Bay Coalition Against the Briggs Initiative. She was in her full glory, powerful woman, drawing on the mighty talent she used throughout her life to help each faction feel heard, help everyone move toward concensus. I, a 21 year-old feminist activist, fell totally in love for the first time in my life.During that summer of love we both considered her the wiser, older woman, much more experienced than me because her of being three years older. We worked passionately in "EBAC's" campaign to defeat the anti-gay Brigg's Initiative (the one depicted in recent movies about the gay politician Harvey Milk), we ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Felice Yeskel, z'l; A Remembrance: April 6, 1953 - Jan. 11, 2011 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Felice Yeskel, z'l; A Remembrance: April 6, 1953 - Jan. 11, 2011 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 12725 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Conversations Begin with Questions https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436688 Judith Arcana (b. Cleveland, OH, 1943) and Lois Leveen (b. Queens, NY, 1968) are writers who live in Portland, Oregon. They met at a Mother's Day brunch in 2007, at which neither of their mothers nor any offspring were present. They enjoy each other's company, but have not had many deep, long conversations, so they are grateful to Bridges for this invitation, which gave them a reason to walk and talk together. My first Bridges publication was a short poem that came out of my embrace of Jewish identity. I had made the mistake of thinking that because I no longer "believed in" the religion—Judaism (stopped believing in God when I was 17), I was not a Jew. This was an error. By my early thirties, however ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Conversations Begin with Questions 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Conversations Begin with Questions 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 20851 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Why Write Poetry? https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436689 I started writing poetry as a teenager as a way to express what I felt most deeply. I could be brutally honest about my thoughts and feelings. It wasn't for others. Only later did I understand that poetry could be a vehicle for communication and social change. As a citizen of the world, I do believe I must bear witness to the immoral, to the unspeakable horror that humankind is capable of inflicting on the earth and itself. Poetry's precise, musical, metaphor-infused language can get to that place beyond the illusion of the objective, to "true" words. My early poems were a way to soothe my unhappiness. Now I know that anything deeply felt or observed can become the genesis of a poem. When I feel fully engaged ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Why Write Poetry? 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Why Write Poetry? 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 21095 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Inside the Rib: Red Hen Press Launch Sisters Discuss their Work https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436690 Veronica, we were introduced to each other a few months ago because we are "launch sisters," both with books published this winter by Red Hen Press. Even though our work is very different, in different genres, it was exciting to recognize a shared fascination with the intersection of personal and political themes in our work. Tell me about your path to writing the poems in Vocabulary of Silence. Where do I begin? Both A Bell Buried Deep and Vocabulary of Silence were written as books. That is, I had an idea, a concept, questions like little splinters around which I wrote poems. For Vocabulary it was, on one level, the continued U.S. wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, I had just spent a year ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Inside the Rib: Red Hen Press Launch Sisters Discuss their Work 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Inside the Rib: Red Hen Press Launch Sisters Discuss their Work 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 13232 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Letters on Uncertainty, Bewilderment and Faith https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436691 Note: In the early part of 2006 Kazim wrote to Rachel about her poem "Notes: from the Wait" from her book Azimuth. Rachel, meanwhile, had been teaching Kazim's book The Far Mosque in her class. Thus the first contact between the two poets was established. Hi Rachel,It was so beautiful to hear you describe my poems lying in your mind down between the sea and mountain—and thanks for including "Renunciation" in your class. I hope you will let me know how the students read it or hear it. "Thicket" and "Hunger" were both hard poems for me to write. I love the idea that Isaac did not know why he was going up the mountain, because the crux of the Ismail myth is that he knows and chooses to follow his father—the ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Letters on Uncertainty, Bewilderment and Faith 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Letters on Uncertainty, Bewilderment and Faith 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 27115 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Wandering Jews https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436692 Dear Lolette, Clare Kinberg of Bridges suggested we meet "on paper"—internet really—and initiate a conversation. I think she did so knowing we share much in common: our left-wing histories, our lives outside the U.S. and our writing. I come from a long line of wanderers, Jews who roamed the length and breadth of Europe. My grandparents, on both sides, traveled to America from towns in Poland one day, in Russia the next, and, from as far back as I can remember, have never left their bones in the countries where they were born. Up until recently, I thought neither would I.I was born in New York in 1942 but in 1950, the height of the McCarthy era, my parents, active in the left-wing, fled to Mexico, one of two ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Wandering Jews 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Wandering Jews 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 24943 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Straddling Worlds, Bringing Your Whole Self https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436693 This conversation was delayed, because on the day it was to begin, Margaret was on a plane, flying to Cuba, which was the perfect symbolic start to our exchange. Both of us have spent many years engaged with the revolutionary movements of Latin America, living between worlds in many different ways. Margaret was going to Havana to be a judge for the Casa de las Americas literary prizes, and Casa de las Americas, founded by Cuban revolutionary Haydee Santamaría, has played a pivotal role in the leftist cultural life of Latin America throughout Aurora's career as a Latin American writer. Both of us have found hope, inspiration and frustration in our chosen arenas of struggle, as feminists, as Jews, as writers, as ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Straddling Worlds, Bringing Your Whole Self 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Straddling Worlds, Bringing Your Whole Self 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 22155 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Translations Tel Aviv to Toronto https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436694 Gili, I'd like to start this conversation by stating our differences: you are an Israeli poet who writes primarily in Hebrew, but you have recently moved to Toronto, Canada, where you write poetry in English. I am an American poet who has lived in Tel Aviv for the past decade, and I write poetry solely in English. Since we have been translating each other's work for some time now (mine into Hebrew and yours into English), I have begun to wonder whether our differences add up to an important similarity, that we are both "outsiders" in the countries where we live and write.Well Dara, I would agree with you, but I would like to take it another step further. Weren't we "outsiders" even before moving away from our ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Translations Tel Aviv to Toronto 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Translations Tel Aviv to Toronto 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 23065 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 They Wrote About Everything: Women and Yiddish https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436695 Chava Rosenfarb died a few weeks after this conversation. We dedicate this essay to her memory.Faith sent Irena these questions as a starting place for our conversation:What are the most pressing issues for feminist Yiddish activists now? How has our work with Yiddish women's texts contributed to Bridges? How do we connect our own creativity and activism with that of the women whose work we translate? Does their work influence ours? Do we see ourselves as part of a tradition (or counter-tradition) of Jewish women artists?What should we do next to promote engagement with women's Yiddish history?I did think it was interesting that your questions were framed in activist terms and I'm not sure I view it that way ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall They Wrote About Everything: Women and Yiddish 2011-06-04 text/html en-US They Wrote About Everything: Women and Yiddish 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 21482 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Thoughts on Yiddish and Bridges https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436696 12/22/10Dear Kathryn, So, about Bridges . . . Some disconnected remarks: It was an intimidating magazine for me, at the beginning at least. (Appropriately enough, I became a subscriber in an indirect way; Genesis 2 went out of business, subscribers to that magazine were invited to become subscribers to a number of other magazines, the first part of the new subscription being paid for by the money already contributed to the old subscription. I chose Bridges.) Intimidating in its radical feminism, for one thing—"for Jewish feminists and their friends" was the slogan, and would these feminists in fact regard me as a friend? Then there was the connection with Adrienne Rich, whose essays consistently ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Thoughts on Yiddish and Bridges 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Thoughts on Yiddish and Bridges 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 16870 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Lessons in Russian and Yiddish https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436697 Sarah and I met in a group, CJWA (Creative Jewish Women's Alliance), started by Marcia Cohn Spiegel in Los Angeles in the late 1970s. Although Sarah and I were both born in the U.S., we are of different generations. Sarah was born in the late 1920s; I was born in the early '50s. I joined the group around 1981. Over the years I have come in and out of CJWA, as in 1996, I started living extensive periods in Russia. As we talked the issue of language, place, loss and identity became central to the conversation.I experienced a reawakening of my mother tongue and love of poetry in my 60s. Both my parents, with whom I had always spoken Yiddish, had died and I was facing retirement from Cal State Northridge at age 70 and ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Lessons in Russian and Yiddish 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Lessons in Russian and Yiddish 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 26428 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Poetry: Music, Patience and Form https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436698 How did you come to connect your Judaism with your writing? Were the two always intertwined? I started teaching creative writing based on Tanach [Hebrew scriptures: Torah, Prophets, Writings] to high school kids in an after school program, but it took years before I incorporated the process I taught them into my writing. At first, I thought poetry was coming from a different spiritual energy and Judaism would dry it up, especially the brand of Judaism I began to find myself more and more involved in. And yes, being in an Orthodox Jewish environment, before I was grounded in who I was, did stop the poetry. I tried to write but garble came out, words that couldn't describe what I was feeling or communicate it to ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Poetry: Music, Patience and Form 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Poetry: Music, Patience and Form 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 34419 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 On Editing from The Well of Living Waters and Drash: Northwest Mosaic https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436699 From the Well of Living Waters, an anthology of Jewish Bay Area poets began like many projects—with a conversation. In the summer of 2010, I met with Rabbi Burt Jacobson, founding rabbi of Kehilla Community Synagogue, for my annual spiritual check-up. At the conclusion of our talk and knowing my interests, Rabbi Burt suggested that I consider editing an anthology of Kehilla poets and friends. It sounded like a grand idea. I asked Kehilla staff to post a call for submissions in the synagogue's online newsletter, Kol Kehilla. I also reached out to congregants and poets whom I knew from the perimeter of our community. The response was immediate. Poems flowed to me from all directions. In August ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall On Editing from The Well of Living Waters and Drash: Northwest Mosaic 2011-06-04 text/html en-US On Editing from The Well of Living Waters and Drash: Northwest Mosaic 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 16153 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Class Words https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436700 For the first several years of Bridges, there was an editorial collective—the Core Editorial Group, the "CEG." The CEG worked to edit the journal and make decisions about its direction. We met, more or less, annually, and then worked through mail, phone, and eventually email to share ideas and information. At one of our early meetings, the issue of class was raised, and the effects of that weekend's discussions reverberated in the CEG and the journal. At the time I joined the collective (1991), I was the only person with a working class background. It was hard to feel isolated in that way, especially in a group I felt so connected to in other ways, as a Jewish feminist.And at the time I wondered why that ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Class Words 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Class Words 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 23190 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Choosing Life https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436701 In the Spring/Summer 1992 issue of Bridges Ruth interviewed Judith Masur and her partner, Jessica Barshay, about what it was like to live with a disbelieved disability, environmental illness and chronic fatigue syndrome, and how this affected their relationship. This article discusses what has transpired since then and explores Judith's ongoing work to make a film, Love and Troubles, illustrating their story and bringing meaning to difficult decisions. We had two other bouts of "dueling disabilities" when I needed reparative surgery about six months later and then popped a disk in my back at work and was out for 8 1/2 months in 92/93. When I returned to work after recovery, I realized I needed to change my ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Choosing Life 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Choosing Life 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 20045 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Art, Aging and Legacies https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436702 Lili Artel wrote to Clare: I need to be paired with another writer. I'm 92 years old, have, since 2000, published a novel, a memoir and am currently working up a book, a "bakers' dozen" of personal essays. I'm also continuing to write poetry—many on the subject of being old and the prospect of death—but I've retained my sense of humor and I leaven my poems with some lightness. Of course, Bridges writers are feminists, but I think we could manage to understand each other better if we were closer in age or experience: I'm a New York leftist of the 1930's-40's. I'm also a visual artist, a fiber sculptor, which I started doing in my 50s with no encouragement. It's a wonderful idea and I would be proud to be a ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Art, Aging and Legacies 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Art, Aging and Legacies 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 22867 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Older and Wiser https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436703 Our friendship is based on conversations over many years. Bridges has been one of the links that nurtured our thinking and development. My involvement with Bridges began before the founding even, when I gave a keynote address on the changing Jewish family at a conference of New Jewish Agenda. I talked about addiction and sexual and domestic violence in Jewish homes. The following year NJA co-sponsored with National Council of Jewish Women a talk I gave in New York, "No More Family Secrets." At that talk a woman got up and pleaded with the audience to help her regain custody of her daughter. It was a horror story of an Orthodox family where the sexual perpetrator was given custody of the child, and ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Older and Wiser 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Older and Wiser 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 19881 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Still Books to Write https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436704 Edith's interview of Jenny, as part of a group interview of Jewish women artists, appeared in the winter 1994-95 issue of Bridges. We've known each other for years but don't see much of each other so this is a good chance to catch up. We're about the same age.I'm six months older.The same age. You are primarily a visual artist who has done comics and is now working on a graphic novel. I am a prose writer who also writes poetry. We were both once teachers and in our own way continue to teach. So here we are in our eighties. You are still working and so am I. What did you think your life would be like at this point if you thought about it at all? Actually I never thought about what my life would be like ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Still Books to Write 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Still Books to Write 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 24737 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Two Memoirs After Seven Decades https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436705 Rachel Berghash Half a House: My Life in and Out of Jerusalem Sunstone Press, 2011 Photo left: Berghash in army uniform, Nachal Brigade (Fighting Pioneer Youth) Helène Aylon Whatever is Contained Must Be Released: My Orthodox Jewish Girlhood My Life as a Feminist Artist The Feminist Press, 2012 Photo right: detail from Aylon's installation, My Marriage Contract We both were born in the '30s—Rachel in the holy city of Jerusalem, Helène in the Jewish ghetto of Borough Park. Seven decades later, we each wrote our memoirs. Our books are coming out around the same time. You know, my life as an artist began when I was 35. My first show was in 1970 when I finally crossed the Brooklyn ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Two Memoirs After Seven Decades 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Two Memoirs After Seven Decades 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 23138 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 The Uses of Language https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436706 During the past several years, my writing has been focused on compiling and editing correspondence that I translated from German and Yiddish, written during the years 1916 through 1947 by family from Vienna, England, Italy and Lemberg/Lvov to family in New York and Palestine. The documents I collected for use as annotation to the correspondence (newspaper articles, decrees, laws, and immigration policies), reveal that however this family responded to events, economic and basic survival seemed random and depended on timing, luck and the kindness of strangers, as well as on circumstances of which they were either unaware, or powerless to do anything about. Moreover, they reveal countless instances of vicious ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall The Uses of Language 2011-06-04 text/html en-US The Uses of Language 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 30270 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Legends and Legacies from Denver to Berlin https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436707 Sunday, December 26, 2010Dear Renée,What a happy coincidence that Clare Kinberg put us in touch with each other.To introduce myself: I was born in Zimbabwe to a family of conservative Jewish Baltic origin; spent my childhood in South Africa and London and studied mathematics before becoming a journalist and writer. I am a British citizen. Having lived in Berlin for nearly 30 years, I have often written about "being Jewish in Germany" and have also participated in several interviews, films etc. I am also actively involved in the anti-racist movement here and the fight against anti-Semitism.You can find work of mine on the net at my website: http://karenmargolis.wordpress.com/ Looking forward to hearing from ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Legends and Legacies from Denver to Berlin 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Legends and Legacies from Denver to Berlin 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 24992 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Reversing the Gaze https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436708 Clare said she brought us together because "a willingness to look at and revise paradigms" stands out in our work. In 2007, Bridges published my essay, "We Are All Here." I described visiting Lithuania, the land of my Jewish forebears, and meeting people who were reaching out and challenging their fellow citizens to face the past. These brave people moved me and led me to examine and change my own thinking. I've continued with this work. My book, We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust, will be published next year by the University of Nebraska Press. Susannah, your 2009 essay in Bridges beautifully described your father, Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972), who was one of the leading Jewish ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Reversing the Gaze 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Reversing the Gaze 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 12601 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Talking about Loss after the Holocaust https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436709 Laura Levitt offers this description of her book American Jewish Loss After the Holocaust (New York University Press, 2009): Many of us belong to communities that have been scarred by terrible calamities. And many of us come from families that have suffered grievous losses. How we reflect on these legacies of loss and the ways they inform each other are the questions I take up in my book. Writing in a manner that is personal, creative and theoretical, I reflect on the experiences of a particular Jewish family (my own) in contemporary America and on the way Jews in the United States have tried to make sense of the great communal disaster of the twentieth century that is the Holocaust. Throughout this ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Talking about Loss after the Holocaust 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Talking about Loss after the Holocaust 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 23322 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Way Beyond the Girl-Nots https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436710 Hi Betti! I welcome our conversation. There are similarities in our poems, so I wonder if our backgrounds are similar also. Where did you grow up and what was it like?I grew up in Philadelphia, PA. My neighborhood was an ethnic mix. For a time I was the only Jewish kid on the block. Not especially easy post WWII. But during school years a wonderful sense of community grew among my friends. Later I became a teacher and then a speech therapist, and loved both. The children I taught lived in a mostly poor, white neighborhood. I was a therapist in an all Afro-American school. This is a poem about my childhood. The Space Between the wall and the wallpaper the glue of belonging to ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Way Beyond the Girl-Nots 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Way Beyond the Girl-Nots 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 25697 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Between NYC and Haifa: On Being Jewish, Feminist and Peace Activist https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436711 Bridges is a "Jewish feminist journal." I have a problem with this Jewish thing. Why?Because in Israel being Jewish is being part of the majority and belonging to something that is today smacking of racism. For example the recent call by Orthodox Rabbis (who are State-salaried) not to rent apartments to Arabs in Zafed and the letter of the Rabbis' wives calling on young Jewish women not to associate with Arabs lest they will fall in love and get married to them. There is a new initiative now calling on restaurant owners to state publicly there are no Arab employees on the premises. Not to mention State laws forbidding the sale of land to Palestinians who are citizens of Israel, not allowing Arabs to join ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Between NYC and Haifa: On Being Jewish, Feminist and Peace Activist 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Between NYC and Haifa: On Being Jewish, Feminist and Peace Activist 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 19600 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 A Congenial Anarchy: An Affirmation of Jewish Feminist Space https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436712 In 1996, B'not Esh, a Jewish feminist collective, inducted two members whose similarities, to the untrained eye, were obvious. Both Rosie Pegueros (b. 1950) and Marla Brettschneider (b. 1965) were Jewish, feminist lesbians who were leftist, politically-engaged academics who loved the ritual and music of Judaism—especially alternative, feminist forms. But there the similarities apparently ended. The events of the fifteen-year gap in their ages, as well as their disparate cultural and class backgrounds contributed to huge differences in their lives, personalities, and world-views.Founded in 1981, B'not Esh meets annually for five days over Memorial Day weekend at a Catholic laywomen's retreat center called the Grail ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall A Congenial Anarchy: An Affirmation of Jewish Feminist Space 2011-06-04 text/html en-US A Congenial Anarchy: An Affirmation of Jewish Feminist Space 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 20468 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 African American Jewish Women—Life Beyond the Hyphen https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436713 As two diverse Jewish Women of Color, what does it mean for us to live "gracefully" across binary definitions that can be drawn in our communities around race, gender and culture? For me, this question is about moving through life as my full self and enjoying and observing how my own reality influences others perceptions and ideas of who I am. It's about how I work with this condition as a reality. Inevitably, not looking like the stereotypical Ashkenazi Jew, I turn heads when I walk into a room, especially a synagogue. That's the beginning of any educational process: being in the room as yourself. I think this raises questions because the reflection, and I think we all look for our reflections in our ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall African American Jewish Women—Life Beyond the Hyphen 2011-06-04 text/html en-US African American Jewish Women—Life Beyond the Hyphen 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 20438 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Love, Hate, G-d and Poetry https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436714 I am in a time of transition, redefining my relationship to the world as my status changes from educator and student to rabbi. Yet this status is not recognized by many in the Orthodox world. I studied in Israel during the last two summers; much of the spiritual part of that journey involved defining my relationship to the Orthodox—particularly the ultra-Orthodox. This is what I wrote after a particularly dramatic encounter: On Monday July 12, 2010, three Reconstructionist Rabbinical College students, their partners, and a Reconstructionist rabbi gathered at the Western Wall for morning prayers with Women of the Wall, a group that advocates for women's prayer space and equality at Judaism's holiest ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Love, Hate, G-d and Poetry 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Love, Hate, G-d and Poetry 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 22366 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Discovering Jewish Feminism a Generation Apart https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436715 Alana, As soon as I read Clare's message I thought of you. We could tell each other about how we discovered ourselves to be feminist Jews—and/or what being a feminist Jew means to each of us? Certainly we should start by identifying ourselves as cousins!It's funny because I have a hard time remembering if I was ever not a feminist. My mother had all your books on our shelf and also the poetry of Marge Piercy and I was reading those long before I had any idea what they were really talking about. So you got your feminism with your mother's milk, like healthy antibodies? It was just there all the time? Did you identify yourself as a Jewish feminist when you were young? Were you different from other females of ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Discovering Jewish Feminism a Generation Apart 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Discovering Jewish Feminism a Generation Apart 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 21796 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 How Enid Dame Led Us Beyond Paradigms https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436716 We did not know each other before Clare introduced us by e-mail, after inviting us to enter a "conversation" for the coming issue of Bridges. Clare told us only that we both had strong connections with Enid Dame, who was (and is) well-known to Bridges readers and beloved among many writers and feminists. DeDe is Enid's niece; Madeline was her friend, colleague, and a reviewer of her work. We come from opposite "poles" of identity as Jewish feminists. Our correspondence has provided surprises. After weeks of long emails and phone conversations, we met in New York for coffee. Already "bonded," we agreed, during two intense hours of talking, on some crucial themes. One key notion is that there is no ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall How Enid Dame Led Us Beyond Paradigms 2011-06-04 text/html en-US How Enid Dame Led Us Beyond Paradigms 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 24489 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Attack of the Killer Krows: Hitchcock's The Birds and The Book of Ruth https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436717 Hi Marian, I checked out your blog, and I am very optimistic about us entering a conversation. My stories, compared to your poems, could be described as entertainingly subversive. A lot of my time is taken up with being a board member of the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens, but when my stint is up, I plan to start a blog, too.I wonder at times about the "I" that I project via Facebook and the livejournal blog. The blog partly started merely to keep track of the books I read. I don't know if readers would guess that I am female. Maybe the books by Ursula Le Guin and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro would give me away. Looking forward to hearing from you again.Last night I viewed the DVD of Hitchcock's The Birds. It seemed a ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Attack of the Killer Krows: Hitchcock's The Birds and The Book of Ruth 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Attack of the Killer Krows: Hitchcock's The Birds and The Book of Ruth 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 19109 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Family Skeletons: Writing About the Living and the Dead https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436718 In your poems, I have noticed a generational quality, grandmothers, mothers, daughters. They are ghosts that haunt the poems. Are they always women? And how do you make sure not to cross the line between nostalgia and sentimentality, especially when talking about the dead? I find that there are a lot of voices in my head and stories that want to get told. For a while, my grandmother took over my psyche. It started with an exercise writing a persona poem from a photo. I had a picture of my grandmother in Hungary when she was 16 with long blond hair, taken right before she was forced into a marriage arranged by contract. She complained about this all of her life, but it wasn't until I became her that I felt her ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Family Skeletons: Writing About the Living and the Dead 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Family Skeletons: Writing About the Living and the Dead 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 22398 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Familiar Strangers https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436719 It is extraordinary that out of all the poets Clare suggested, I chose you. We have uncovered so many commonalities as Jewish women writers as well as striking differences, particularly in our views relating to the role of patriarchy in Judaism. This is from Beshert, a sonnet I wrote for you after the first time we talked: two strangers, two women, two Jews, two lives have traveled. Both alternately blessed and cursed, we chose to be like the swimmer who dives, will keep on diving until our lungs burst with awe, with wisdom, with the precious air that will renew our limbs, the aims we share. When I first saw the ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Familiar Strangers 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Familiar Strangers 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 23832 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Forward and Backward: Jewish Lesbian Writers https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436720 I've been a lesbian writer and activist for the last forty-some years. I've published seven books (novels, poetry, short stories), edited the journal Sinister Wisdom, taught, and worked for all kinds of lesbian, feminist, antiwar and anti-racist organizations. I've always been engaged with what lesbians are writing. I read Jyl's book of stories, Hot Chicken Wings, when it came out, and reread her memoir, Cravings, last month. I'm pleased to be in conversation here. I published a number of poems in Bridges during the early '90s, many of them while I was working on Beyond the Pale (a Jewish lesbian novel, set in Russia & NY, between 1860-1912). One of the reasons I wrote Beyond the Pale was because I ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Forward and Backward: Jewish Lesbian Writers 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Forward and Backward: Jewish Lesbian Writers 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 22554 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04 Enemies https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721 Helena writes:Laura Markowitz and I have been friends for over 25 years. We started our conversation in Jerusalem in 1985, where we talked passionately about women and Judaism, and have encouraged and challenged each other steadily since. Laura has coaxed me to widen my thinking and taught me countless lessons on compassion, empathy, and praise. She is a visionary thinker, writer, and beautiful human being.Today Laura and I are talking some more, and surprisingly, 2,000 years ago, Hillel summed up our recent conversations: "What is hateful unto you, do not do unto your neighbor. That is the whole Torah, all the rest is commentary. Now, go and study."At each year's Seder, we Jews have a chance to look at what and ... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436721">Read More</a> Project MUSE® https://muse.jhu.edu/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/312/image/coversmall Enemies 2011-06-04 text/html en-US Enemies 2011-06-04 2011 TWO Project MUSE® 21560 2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00 2011-06-04