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Rena Lubin

Rena Lubin Headshot

Rena Lubin earned a BA from the University of North Carolina at Asheville in Religious Studies with a minor in History. She has a passion for preservation, curation, and education; she has worked as an intern specializing in digitization at the Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center, served as the Exhibits and Global Education Coordinator and Artifact Lending Intern for UNC Asheville’s Center for Diversity Education, and is working toward a career in museum education. While at UNC Asheville, she did independent research on the often stereotypical and one-dimensional representations of Jewish women characters in American popular culture. She is dedicated to making history more accessible and inclusive, giving volume to the individual voices and experiences that are often left out of the narrative. Rena is also a huge fan of the Harry Potter series, an avid re-watcher of the Kennedy-Nixon presidential debates, and an aficionado of 90s TV dramas.

Blog Posts

Broad City Finale

A Belated Goodbye to Broad City

Rena Lubin

I know Broad City will always be there for me—and us—to watch over and over...and over... again.

Mona Lisa Saperstein

Authenticity, Please: TV’s Jewish Ladies

Rena Lubin

Television shows often reduce Jewish women to a few tired tropes, ones that are largely negative, or stereotypical.

Topics: Television
Ilana and Abbi in Broad City Episode, "Witches"

Why I Rewatched Broad City's “Witches” For My Birthday

Rena Lubin

For my 22nd birthday in December, I decided to rewatch Season 4 Episode 6 of Broad City—“Witches”and let it all sink in as another year goes by, another birthday passes, and I apparently keep growing older.

Topics: Feminism, Television
Paris Geller and "Operation Finish Line"

How Paris Geller’s Jewishness Helped Me Understand Mine

Rena Lubin

So, how Jewish is Gilmore Girls’ Paris Geller? I’d say, very.

While Gilmore Girls has a permanent home in my Netflix “Continue Watching” list and I tend to restart the series as soon as I finish it, I feel conflicted about the representation of Paris Geller, and of her Judaism.

Topics: Television
Willow Season 6

In Willow's Defense

Rena Lubin

From my initial pre-teen viewing of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with my mom, to the countless times I have revisited the series since, I have always adored Willow Rosenberg, Buffy’s Jewish best friend who is lovable, dorky, and consistently overshadowed by the dramatic fight scenes, the messy romances, and everything having to do with Buffy Summers. That is, until the infamous sixth season when her witchy powers become her downfall.

Topics: Feminism, Television
Rena Lubin and Her Mother as Young Girls

The Power of Personal Histories

Rena Lubin

As an aspiring oral historian, I’ve always gotten chills when listening to recorded interviews. I love the interviewer’s inviting questions, the way the interviewee may leap into a narrative, the chance for the listener to peer into the interviewee’s past, and the powerful, sometimes nostalgic, recollection of a story.

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How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Rena Lubin." (Viewed on March 28, 2024) <http://jwa.org/blog/author/rena-lubin>.