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Henny Wenkart

July 5, 1928–December 4, 2021

by JWA Staff
Our work to expand the Encyclopedia is ongoing. We are providing this brief biography for Henny Wenkart until we are able to commission a full entry.

Henny Wenkart with the book she co-edited, Which Lilith?

Through her creation of the Jewish Women’s Poetry Workshop, Henny Wenkart created much-needed community and resources for Jewish women writers. Shortly before her eleventh birthday, Wenkart was rescued from Nazi-occupied Austria by Brith Shalom Lodge in Philadelphia, which rescued and hosted 50 Jewish children at their guest resort. Her family fled the country later that year, reunited with her, and moved to Providence, Rhode Island. Wenkart studied philosophy at Pembroke College, where she became a charter member of Hillel before graduating in 1949. She went on to earn a master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University in 1950. In 1951 she married and moved to Boston, where she earned her PhD in Philosophy from Harvard in 1973 while teaching writing and philosophy at the university. From 1980–1986 she taught philosophy at Stern College in New York. Wenkart then founded the Jewish Women’s Poetry Workshop, which she continued to lead as of 2016. She edited The Jewish Women’s Literary Annual, and has also edited the poetry anthology Sarah’s Daughters Sing (1990), co-edited Which Lilith? Feminist Writers Recreate the First Woman (1998), and published a collection of her poetry, Love Poems of a Philanderer’s Wife (2005). Wenkart was a founding board member of the Jewish Women’s Archive.

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How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Henny Wenkart." (Viewed on December 10, 2024) <https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/wenkart-henny>.