Wendy Zierler

Wendy Zierler is associate professor of Feminist Studies and Modern Jewish Literature at HUC-JIR in New York. A former research fellow in the English Department of Hong Kong University and a Fulbright Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, she received her Ph.D. and her M.A. from Princeton University and her B.A. from Yeshiva University, Stern College. She is the author of And Rachel Stole the Idols: The Emergence of Hebrew Women’s Writing (2004).

Articles by this author

Nehamah Pukhachewsky

Nehamah Pukhachewsky’s writings advocated for Jewish women with a feminist confidence that resonates with readers to this day. Pukhachewsky immigrated from Lithuania to Palestine in 1889, actively participating in agriculture and women’s rights movements along with writing articles for Hebrew journals. She is remembered as one of the first modern Hebrew women prose writers.

Rachel Kagan (Cohen)

One of two women to sign the Israeli Declaration of Independence, Rachel Kagan shaped women’s rights in the new state. She left a powerful legacy from her work in social welfare in addition to her time as a Knesset member.

Yokheved Bat-Miriam (Zhelezhniak)

Yokheved Bat-Miriam was part of a group of pioneering Hebrew women poets in the 1920s. Her poetry commemorates the religious and emotional lives of Jewish women and frequently focuses on women of the Bible who composed and/or recited poetry.

Autobiography in the United States

As the status and roles of women in American and Jewish life changed over the twentieth century, more and more American Jewish women turned to autobiographical writing as a means of documenting these changes and addressing questions of American, Jewish, and female identity. Jewish women created accounts of the immigrant experience, feminist or activist involvement, political and literary involvement, Holocaust survival narratives, as well as coming-of-age memoirs.

Anda Pinkerfeld Amir

Anda Pinkerfeld-Amir was a Zionist poet, and author whose works reflected the tension between Judaism and feminism in the early twentieth century. In her youth, she was a member of Ha-Shomer ha-Za'ir in Poland, and in 1920 she immigrated to Palestine to write Hebrew verse. She is best remembered as a children’s writer who tackled complex topics with humor and compassion.

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How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Wendy Zierler." (Viewed on December 4, 2024) <https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/author/zierler-wendy>.