Writing: Fiction
Writers in Victorian England
Spurred to publish initially as a response to the concerted campaigning of Christian conversionists, women writers were the first Anglo-Jews to produce literature on Jewish themes in England. By the end of the nineteenth century, literature by Jewish women had expanded to encompass not only works defensive of the dignity and rights of Anglo-Jewry, but also satirical novels critical of the community’s materialism and marriage practices.
Anzia Yezierska
Essayist, novelist, writer, and literary critic Anzia Yezierska turned the frustrations and indignities she suffered in New York’s tenements into novels and short stories that depicted the strenuous working lives of Jewish immigrants. Her novels, short stories, and autobiographical writing vividly depict both the literal hunger of poverty and the metaphoric hunger for security, education, companionship, home, and meaning that Jewish immigrants sought in America at the turn of the century.
Helen Yglesias
At the age of 54, Helen Yglesias dedicated herself to becoming a writer. Her works focus on the lives and concerns of Jewish women in New York. Her most notable books include Sweetsir and The Girls.
Yiddish Literature in the United States
Writers of a broad range of texts—passionate and erotic lyrical verse, social realist fiction, affecting descriptions of immigrant life, nostalgic paeans to their Eastern European homes, dirges to those murdered in the Holocaust—Yiddish women writers were modernists and traditionalists, romantics and realists, prose writers and poets. They represent no single school or line of development, but rather the range of women’s voices contained in Yiddish literature.
Yiddish: Women's Participation in Eastern European Yiddish Press (1862-1903)
The development of the Yiddish press allowed Jewish women to move from the domestic into the public sphere and to be part of public discussion about communities’ affairs, to acquire knowledge of other Jewish towns and world events, and to express themselves publicly in their own language understood by all. They wrote letters to the editor, stories and articles, and opinion pieces and practical instructions.
Jane Yolen
Jane Yolen is a Jewish-American children’s author, poet, and young adult novelist. Yolen has written more than 400 books for children and adults, including the children’s book series How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? and the young adult Holocaust novella The Devil’s Arithmetic.
Charlotte Zolotow
Writer and editor Charlotte Zolotow wrote over 70 children’s books. Her best-known story is William’s Doll, which was produced as a short film and as a song for the popular children’s album Free to Be … You and Me. Some of Zolotow’s books approach difficult topics such as gender roles, death, single parents, and conflict.
