Sorrow Song: Hebrew Women’s Poetry in a Time of War

What happens when, after centuries of literary silence, women finally enter into the world of Hebrew letters? How do the first modern Hebrew woman poets and songwriters take hold of longstanding themes in Hebrew literary tradition and make them their own?

This four-week Zoom class with Prof. Wendy Zierler will look at the emergence of modern Hebrew women’s poetry, its relation to biblical and liturgical sources, as well as to such pressing issues of modern and contemporary concern as war, illness, bereavement, and Zionism.

Wendy Zierler is the Sigmund Falk Professor of Modern Jewish Literature and Feminist Studies at Hebrew Union-College—Jewish institute of religion in New York City. She is co-editor of Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History, and, most recently, Building A City: Writings on Agnon’s Buczacz in Memory Alan Mintz (Indiana University Press). Wendy holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University, a B.A. from Stern College of Yeshiva University and an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from Sarah Lawrence College, and was ordained at Yeshiva Maharat.