Grace Paley: A Jew–ish writer

On Sunday, July 5, 2026, Agnon House invites you to an online lecture by Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi on the work and life of Grace Paley, an extraordinary writer whose inimitable prose gave voice to women, protest, aging, and the burdens of the world.

Paley published her first collection of stories in 1959, and over the following decades documented, in her inimitable prose, the lives of young city women raising children, contending with difficult husbands, and protesting the wars and injustices of their time. In midlife, she moved from New York City to a small hilltop cabin in Vermont, where she became, in her later years, a poet of nature, aging, and the body. In 2003, she was named Poet Laureate of Vermont.

Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, who first encountered Paley’s hilarious storytelling voice as a young mother and scholar, later came to know her personally in Vermont — in her cabin, and on the “protesting streets” of Vermont and New Hampshire. In this lecture, she will speak about the voice one hears throughout Paley’s work: that of a diminutive Jew-ish writer who takes the burden of the world into the “griefpack” on her shoulders, and engages God, who is always “good for conversation.”

Sunday, July 5, 2026
1:00 PM ET | 8:00 PM Israel time
Online on Zoom
Free admission