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Contributors
Judith Arcana
Judith Arcana is a Jewish anarchist feminist witch and writer. Her many political, literary, and spiritual influences include Emma Goldman, Grace Paley and Starhawk. Judith's work is forthcoming soon in Poetica, BuffaloCarp, Women's Lives and Big Water. Her newest book is reviewed in this issue: What if your mother (Chicory Blue Press, 2005) is a collection of poems and monologues about motherhood; the focus is on issues that are rarely examined with the necessary complexity: abortion, adoption, biotechnology, et al.
Lili Artel
"My roots are in New York City but I've flourished creatively in the East Bay area of California. An octogenarian, my original intent was to be a writer, particularly of short stories. My fiction has appeared in anthologies and literary journals in California and Oregon. My poetry was published in the 25th Anniversary issues of Room of One's Own, a Canadian feminist literary journal in 2003. A late bloomer, in my fifties in the last century I opened a second creative door to become a sculptor with a retrospective show of 35 years of art work, set for Dec. 1-17, 2005 at the Sun Gallery in my hometown, Hayward, CA. Both in my art and writing there's an irreverent Jewish/feminist voice." [End Page 130]
Maskit Bendel
Maskit Bendel is the director of projects in the Occupied Territories for Physicians for Human Rights-Israel. She was born and raised in Jerusalem, and currently lives in Tel Aviv. She writes, "my father was a military man, and I grew up in a very Zionist family. I served in the Israel Defense Force and took the course of living of the average Israeli youth. My awareness to issues of gender and inequality rose at a very late stage in my life, while working for PHR. Through learning more about the Palestinian society, I opened my eyes to what is taking place inside my own society." Bendel has a degree in textile design and is completing a master's degree in cultural research at Tel Aviv university. She is also studying for a degree in law, intending to focus on human rights and international law.
Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser
Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser, a writer, community activist and mother of three, was raised with feminism and without much religion. In hopes her kids' choices about faith are informed, her family belongs to Beit Ahavah, a fledgling Reform congregation in Florence, MA. She loves that their congregation meets in a church.
Susan H. Case
Susan H. Case is a college professor in New York. She has recent work in, or forthcoming in: Eclipse, Georgetown Review, Karamu, Pebble Lake Review, Saranac Review, Slant, Tar Wolf Review, The Comstock Review and The GW Review, among others. She is the author of The Scottish Café (Slapering Hol Press, 2002), a collection of poems about mathematics in Poland right before and during the Holocaust. These poems have been translated into both Polish and Ukrainian and both translators are currently looking for foreign publishers.
Claire Drucker
Claire Drucker is a Jewish bisexual mom living in Sebastopol, CA. She teaches creative writing to adults at a local junior college and poetry to children in the public schools. Claire has been published in Diner, California Quarterly, Phoebe, Eclipse, Women Artists Datebook, Epiphany and Controlled Burn.
Susan Eisenberg
A poet with a theater background, Susan Eisenberg takes multiple approaches to a subject. She is the author of We'll Call You If We Need You: Experiences of Women Working Construction (non-fiction) and Pioneering (poetry); and creator of the installation NOT on a SilVER PLATTER. She's currently working on a poetry/photo/nonfiction project about women with lupus. She teaches at the University of Massachusetts Boston. [End Page 131]
Jyl Lynn Felman
Performance Artist/Visiting Assistant Professor (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Jyl Lynn Felman is the author of Hot Chicken Wings, Cravings, Never A Dull Moment, and the forthcoming Performing Cultural Rituals. She's performed in Cuba, England, Canada, Australia, and the Czech Republic and currently touring with Terri Schiavo, Inc. and Silicone Valley. Check out her website: www.jyllynnfelman.com or reach her at drjlfelman@aol.com
Elaine Fox
Elaine Fox is a physician, Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Geriatrics, and she is also a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. After working for several years in Pittsburgh and then a time as Medical Director of a nursing home started for Holocaust survivors in Queens, NY, she practiced medicine in Southampton, NY for 17 years. She is married to Oliver Steindecker, an abstract artist, and together they faced and still face the challenge of raising their two daughters in a community that is distinctly non-Jewish. At present, Dr. Fox is on the boards of Physicians for a National Health Program -NY Metro Chapter and the Long Island Coalition for a National Health Plan, serving as liaison between the two groups. She is also pursuing a graduate degree in Public Health at SUNY Stony Brook, maintaining that it is the health care system itself which is her patient now.
Lisa Link
"I am an artist, educator and mother of two young children and I live and work (at several jobs) in Boston. I love my position as the digital photography teacher and graphic designer for the Crimson Summer Academy, http://www.crimsonsummer.harvard.edu. My series of Jewish feminist montages have traveled nationally for over fourteen years and are in the collections of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in Los Angeles and the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University. I also have completed public art projects and really enjoy collaborating with others especially on cross-disciplinary projects and welcome mail! lisalink@yahoo.com."
Sheryl Luna
Sheryl Luna's collection of poetry, Pity the Drowned Horses, was published by the University of Notre Dame Press (2005). It won the first Andres Montoya Poetry Prize sponsored by The Institute for Latino Studies. Her maternal grandfather was Jewish. Many of her poems deal with women's rights and women's lives along the U.S./Mexican border.
Karen Mandell
Karen Mandell's novel Repairs and Alterations deals with a family's secrets concerning the Holocaust. Her novel Tumbling Down concerns the breakup of a family and their attempts at reconciliation, with the help of several historical figures who make their way into the 21st century. She won the Poetry Society of America/Oil of Olay Contest in 2004 and second place in the Muriel Craft Bailey Contest through the Comstock Review. She lives in Needham Massachusetts [End Page 132] with her husband, Fred, an artist, and they're extremely grateful to watch the ways in which their children's lives unfold.
Ellen Meeropol
Ellen Meeropol recently left her career as a nurse practitioner to spend more time writing and to work in an independent bookstore. Her activism and writing focus on the impact of political activism on children and the impact of illness on medical providers. Previous fiction has been published in Portland Magazine, The Women's Times, Pedestal, and Patchwork Journal. She lives in Western Massachusetts.
Myra Mniewski
Myra Mniewski is a poet and translator who lives and works in New York City. She is currently the director of Yugntruf-Youth for Yiddish, a worldwide organization of Yiddish-speaking and Yiddish-learning young adults founded in 1964. For more, www.yugntruf.org.
Rose Rappoport Moss
"I was born Jewish in apartheid South Africa, and at the dining room table heard my parents compare laws against blacks in South Africa with laws against Jews in Lithuania. As a schoolgirl, I rebelled against teachers trying to instill ladylike manners and compliance in an unjust society. I came to the United States in 1964 and found my past illuminated in the anti-war and feminist movements here."
Moss is the author of two novels and numerous short stories and teaches creative writing in the Nieman Program at Harvard. Her webpage is: www.rosemosswriter.com.
Gretchen Primack
Gretchen Primack's recent publication credits include The Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, Field, Tampa Review, Rhino, and Cimarron Review, and her manuscript Fiery Cake has been shortlisted for several prizes. She lives in the delightfully Jewish feminist-rich Hudson Valley with many beloved animals and a beloved human.
Renee Gal Primack
Renee Gal Primack is a feminist, bisexual, cancer treatment survivor, mama, almost-wife, almost-step-mom, sister, daughter yet orphan, Jew, underemployed, reluctant Mid-Westerner. She holds a B.A. in Religious Studies and a Masters in Philosophy, neither of which prepared her for all the years doing Web production, but did teach her how to think. Now if that only could get her a decent paying job.
L. A. Reed
L. A. Reed (pen name) is a beginning writer in her 50s; an artist, poet, singer, scientist, and raiser of butterflies, who likes to have fun as well as make change. She chooses to use her pen [End Page 133] name in situations where her identity as a disabled person who is poor could have additional complications with publicity of her lesbian, mental health and abuse survivor identities, which involve her family. "Coming to terms with abuse in Jewish families is not always easy, in light of our difficult history. I am hopeful as I, and others, find the courage to talk about these problems, we will find ways to heal ourselves, as well as our families."
Willa Schneberg
Willa Schneberg received the 2002 Oregon Book Award In Poetry for In The Margins of The World, Plain View Press. Her next collection of poetry "Storytelling in Cambodia" is forthcoming from Calyx Books, Spring '06. She judged the 15th Annual Reuben Rose Poetry Competition sponsored by Voices Israel, and, went to Israel in December 2004, to participate in the Awards Ceremony. She is the originator and coordinator of the Oregon Jewish Writers Series at the Oregon Jewish Museum, Portland, where her clay sculpture of Judaica has been exhibited. She is a congregant of P'nai Or in Portland and a member of Brit Tzedek V'Shalom.
Penelope Scambly Schott
Penelope Scambly Schott's most recent books are a documentary narrative poem, The Pest Maiden: A Story of Lobotomy (2004), and a collection of poems, Baiting the Void (2005). Although she was not raised Jewish she has always been a person of the book.
Brenda Serotte
"'The Last Kaddish' was written after a year of mourning for my mother. We had a rocky relationship, but shared one thing always: A passionate love of Ladino, our ancient Spanish language, still spoken today by Sephardi Jews around the world. After her death, I completed a memoir, The Fortune Teller's Kiss (The University of Nebraska Press), and a book of poetry, The Blue Farm (Ginninderra Press), which explore in depth and celebrate my Sephardi heritage."
Brenda Serotte teaches world literature and writing at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She is at work on a novel about Peru. Find her website at www.BrendaSerotte.com.
Stephanie Waxman
Stephanie Waxman co-produced "Miracle At Midnight" (starring Sam Waterston and Mia Farrow) for ABC, the story of the Danish resistance movement. She taught at Hebrew Union College for 15 years and currently teaches in the UCLA Writers' Program. Her fiction has appeared in numerous literary journals and her story "Perfection" (The Bitter Oleander) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is the author of the internationally published What Is A Girl? What Is A Boy? and Growing Up Feeling Good: A Child's Introduction to Sexuality. Her most recent book is A Helping Handbook-When A Loved One Is Critically Ill. [End Page 134]
Jessica Weissman
Jessica Weissman resides in the DC area and is involved in various aspects of feminist spirituality there. She has been a Jew and a feminist all her life, a philosopher and a computer programmer most of her life, and hopes to remain an active writer for the rest of her life. [End Page 135]
