by Linda K. Kerber

Demystifying the Mystique

Betty Friedan in the 21st century

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Marrying the skills of the sociologist and the historian, Stephanie Coontz gives us a “biography of a book” in A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s (Basic Books, $25.95). Enriched by her own data and interviews, Coontz cuts through the fog that has surrounded The Feminine Mystique since its publication in 1963 and places Betty Friedan’s analytical breakthrough in its historical context.

Fall 2011

Memoir! The life stories revealed in 35 years of Lilith. A female view of male circumcision. Guiding a child through her cancer. Saying Yizkor for a marriage. Re-considering Jewish sororities.

A Woman’s View of Circumcision

by Elana Maryles Sztokman

A (Re)Consideration of Jewish Sororities

by Shira Kohn

Celebrating 35 Years of Jewish Women’s Stories

by Susan Schnur

Winter 2019-2020

DNA secrets, hidden identities • Breast cancer and Jewish women • Tillie Olsen: feminist foremother • At her ritual haircut, she knew she was a girl • The first lady of lox

Fall 2019

#MeToo stories • Jewish women and breast cancer: crisis, intimacy, recovery • Jennifer Weiner on “chick lit’s” power • Suddenly, period positivity • A feminist Jew’s tough search for holiness in community.

Summer 2019

Jewish women and addiction. 1960s & 70s feminism roars back, trendy again. Transforming Jewish life in small-town Maine. Choosing to be Jewish–thus feeling perpetually “the stranger.” Food writing by women that changes the entire culture. She redefines the meaning of Jewish art.

Spring 2019

“Unfaithful,” the theme of 3 prize-winning short stories • Israel’s little-known School for Peace and the woman who created it • The new questions those male policy-makers didn’t know to ask

Demystifying the Mystique

Betty Friedan in the 21st century

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