Description
NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FINALIST
"Raw, vibrant, and full of love" --Kirkus Reviews
"A moving work that encourages solidarity . . . reflect(s)on race, gender, family, religious practice, and culture" --The Jewish Book Council
In 78 vibrant works by 62 gifted contributors, Jewish girls, young women, and nonbinary teens voice their celebrations and challenges, their anger and their eagerness in essays, poetry, and visual art. And their themes are universal, touching on childhood, spirituality, sexuality, race, family, friends, and the world around us.We are writers, editors, photographers, and artists. We are multiethnic, multiracial, and multifaceted. We are nourished by the sweet honey and harsh salt of our lives.
Although we are often misunderstood, we find strength within ourselves and our communities. This book elevates our stories as we honor the past, explore the present, and look toward the future. Through poetry, fiction, essays, and art, we make our voices heard.
"Within these pages is a representation of the Jewish community at its best: a diversity of voices and experiences; a rigorous commitment to challenging the status quo; creativity; humor and heartbreak; suffering and joy. That such an invigorating and affirming work was produced by the teens of jGirls Magazine is proof that they've learned a very important lesson early in life: nobody can tell your story but you." --Molly Tolsky, from the Foreword to Salt & Honey.
The award-winning Salt & Honey and was created by a team of writers and artists brought together as part of jGirls Magazine, including editors Elizabeth Mandel, Emanuelle Sippy, Maya Savin Miller, and Michele Lent Hirsch.
Includes works by: Aliza Abusch-Magder; Lauren Alexander; Gertie Angel; Yael Beer; Alex Berman; Alyx Bernstein; Leah Bogatie; Isabella Brown; Aydia Caplan; Whitney Cohen; Emilia Cooper; Tesaneyah Dan; Denae; Alexa Druyanoff; Emily Duckworth; Elena Eisenstadt; Tali Feen; Abigail Fisher; Leah Fleischer; Lily Gardner; Abigael Good; Sequoia Hack; Madison Hahamy; Samara Haynes; Ahava Helfenbaum; Dalia Heller; Sascha Hochman; Audrey Honig; Alexa Hulse; Liel Huppert; Noa Kalfus; Alma Kastan; Rachel Kaufman; Maya Keren; Naomi Kitchen; Gavi Klein; Jamie Klinger; Emily Knopf; Aidyn Levin; Sonja Lippmann; Shoshana Maniscalco; Liora Meyer; Maya Savin Miller; Becca Norman; Juliet Norman; Dina Ocken; Zoe Oppenheimer; Lily Pazner; Annie Poole; Ofek Preis; Maya Rabinowitz; Emma Rosman; Artie Ross; Sydney Schulman; Eliana Shapere; Emanuelle Sippy; Michal Spanjer; Frankie Vega; Molly Voit; Abigail Winograd; Sarah Young; Makeda Zabot-Hall.
The included Reader's Guide by teen educator and award-winning author Michelle Shapiro Abraham, RJE makes this an outstanding resource for book groups and for teen programming in a variety of contexts.
About the Author
Elizabeth Mandel is the founder and executive director of jGirls Magazine. She is an award-winning documentary film producer, write, editor, and community activist. Elizabeth has built a record of using media to raise awareness and create change around social justice, gender, and Jewish community issues. Her films have screened on public television and at organizations and film festivals around the world. Mandel holds a BS in religion and a master's in international affairs, with a focus on women's economic and political development, both from Columbia University. She lives in New York. Michelle Shapiro Abraham, RJE, has worked in the field of Jewish education for over twenty years and currently serves as the director of learning and innovation for the Union for Reform Judaism's youth team. She is a PJ Library and Sydney Taylor Notable Book Award author and the proud recipient of the 2015 Covenant Award for Excellence in Jewish Education. She lives in New Jersey. Emanuelle Sippy codirected the Kentucky Student Voice Team and led the jGirls Magazine art department throughout high school. She continues to treasure and support these communities while studying at Princeton University and organizing with Future Coalition. Originally from California, Emanuelle grew up in Minneapolis and now calls Lexington, Kentucky home. Maya Savin Miller is dedicated to the regeneration of our social and ecological soils through poetry, education, and farming. She was the head of the jGirls poetry department while in high school, and her writing has been recognized by dozens of literary journals and competitions. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Maya would always prefer to be in the mountains. Michele Lent Hirsch is a writer, editor, and creative writing teacher whose work has appeared in the Atlantic, the Guardian, and the Bellevue Literary Review, among other outlets. Her first book, Invisible, a blend of journalism and memoir on gender, health, and inequity, came out in 2018 from Beacon Press. Molly Tolsky is the founder and editor of Hey Alma, a Jewish feminist website from 70 Faces Media. She holds a BA in fiction writing from Columbia College Chicago and an MFA in fiction writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Her writing can be found in Tin House, Hayden's Ferry Review, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She is also senior editor of No Tokens.
Reviews
"Jewish teens share their experiences, loves, hopes, and fears in this anthology of essays, poems, and artwork from the online publication jGirls Magazine.
Split into six chapters, the works trace the young people's experiences through triumphs and tragedies. "We Always Seem To Return" brings meditations on memory and inheritance, highlighting how Jewish joy and sorrow often walk hand in hand. "When We Were Small" tells stories of childhood and growing up, interrogating such themes as gender identity, substance abuse, and antisemitism. "A Healthy Collection of Blessings and Hardships" tells of the body and the mind, exploring the sacred nature of the self while making space for struggles in mental health. "Traditions, Interpretations, and Imperfections" dives into spirituality and tradition, celebrating the rich variety of the Jewish community. "Where Is the Peace?" confronts ignorance, including experiences of racist, homophobic, antisemitic, and sexist violence. Finally, in "Carving Our Own Footsteps," the artists of a new generation set out to continue the battle for justice and freedom.
The offerings in this book are emphatically and unapologetically Jewish, but the stories they tell will resonate broadly. Contributors include Jews who are Black and Asian, Sephardic and Ashkenazi, and who reflect diversity in gender identity, sexuality, and ability. The young artists and writers featured here bring an appetite for life as well as the teeth necessary to enjoy the meal.
Raw, vibrant, and full of love." (artist statements, reader's guide, resources, about jGirls Magazine, about the contributors) (Anthology. 13-18) --Kirkus Reviews
"Some of the works in this book will haunt you, some will surprise you, and others will buoy you. All will galvanize you." --Leora Tanenbaum, author of I Am Not a Slut: Slut Shaming in the Age of the Internet.
"This powerful work . . . is a celebration of what it truly means to be eishet chayil, a woman of valor: for to speak in one's authentic voice is valor in action." --Marra B. Gad, writer, producer, and award-winning author of The Color of Love: A Story of a Mixed-Race Jewish Girl
"Deep and powerful, sometimes disruptive and disturbing, but most often hopeful and life-affirming . . . Don't miss this." --Ruth W. Messinger, social justice consultant
"In this col lec tion of per son al essays, poet ry, and visu al art work, Jew ish young adults from the online pub li ca tion jGirls Mag a zine con front dif fi cult truths in a chang ing world. Many of the pieces are unfil tered, seek ing to con nect with oth er teens rather than defend ing their points of view to adults. The result is a mov ing work that encour ages sol i dar i ty. Non bi na ry and LGBTQ+ teens speak out, as do bira cial Jews, dis abled Jews, and oth er mar gin al ized Jews who refuse to accept the lim i ta tions of tra di tion al Judaism and aim to cre ate viable new Jew ish communities.
Search ing for mean ing, the works reflect on race, gen der, fam i ly, reli gious prac tice, and cul ture. In the sec tion "A Healthy Col lec tion of Hard ships and Bless ings," Abi gael Good writes of try ing to find "The Right Words" to artic u late how anx i ety has been a con stant pres ence in her life. Emanuelle Sippy's poem, "The Menu is Over whelm ing," uses metaphor to describe the uni ver sal ly dif fi cult yet nec es sary process of mak ing deci sions. Bold truth-telling char ac ter izes many selec tions in "Tra di tions, Inter pre ta tions, and Imper fec tions," where writ ers come to terms with rigid bar ri ers that have lim it ed their Jew ish iden ti ties. Emma Rosman's strong con vic tions answer the ques tion, "Asian Jew or Jew ish Asian?" and Lau ren Alexander's "My Ver sion of Prac tic ing Judaism" dis cuss es the inac ces si bil i ty of some Jew ish rit u als, which abled Jews may take for granted.
Each of the cre ative respons es to con tem po rary Jew ish life is unique. Ele na Eisenstadt's clever vari a tion on bar/ bat mitz vah cul ture, "My Jew ish-Themed Bat Mitz vah," inverts a soci etal norm by offer ing a seem ing ly obvi ous alter na tive. In Ofek Preis's inter pre ta tion of Jew ish social jus tice val ues, "The Pow er of Jew ish Youth," she address es Jew ish teens' involve ment in the fight against gun vio lence. Oth er pieces engage with the mitz vah of pray ing with tefill in, a prac tice from which women are gen er al ly exclud ed in the Ortho dox world. Alyx Bernstein's "L'hitateif V'l'hani'ach (To Don and to Wrap)" exam ines the seem ing con tra dic tions of this spir i tu al expe ri ence for a trans gen der person.
The visu al artists' inter pre ta tions of Jew ish life are rich ly var ied, and each work rewards repeat ed view ing. Whit ney Cohen's Eva is an insight ful por trait of old age; Alexa Druyanoff's Held depicts a moth er and child and draws atten tion to their sim i lar i ties; and Dina Ocken's vision ary Kotel of My Dreams imag ines a place where bar ri ers of reli gious dif fer ence and gen der have been replaced by har mo ny. Ocken's paint ing sum ma rizes the first chapter's intro duc to ry remark: "We are inher i tors and authors of mem o ry; it's the most pow er ful heir loom entrust ed to us." --Emily Schneider, The Jewish Book Council
"Making jGirls voices heard
Adults often look back at their youth through rose-colored glasses. But life is not always easy for the teenagers, something that becomes clear in the poems, stories, essays and artwork by Jewish teens that appear in "Salt and Honey: Jewish Teens on Feminism, Creativity, and Tradition" edited by Elizabeth Mandel with jGirls Magazine (Behrman House/jGirls Magazine.) The preface notes that the teens, ages 13-19, are "self-identifying Jewish girls, young women, and nonbinary teens." The magazine jGirl gave them the space to explore different aspects of their lives, including difficult subjects and joyous ones. The work is titled "Salt and Honey" because the writers "embrace the salt and the honey, the sting and the sweetness" of their lives.
It's difficult to pick out specific works to talk about because they all offer something of interest, but a few that stood out include:
- "Seeing Beyond" by Leah Bogatie that speaks about the author's disabled sister, whose example taught her to acknowledge everyone's humanity.
- The painful and moving "Dad" by Denae (whose last name was not given), who is unable to make peace with her feelings about her father and forgive him his sins.
- Audrey Honig's two wonderful poems, "Almost Thirteen" and "Seventeen," about antisemitism and the joys of being Jewish.
- An excellent and beautiful prayer/poem "21st Century Amidah" by Jamie Klinger.
- Elena Eisenstadt's "My Jewish-Themed Bat Mitzvah" that captures the true meaning of the ceremony.
- The moving "My Version of Practicing Judaism," in which Lauren Alexander writes of how her illness impacts her Jewish practice.
- Lily Pazner's poem "You Have Not Walked the Same Streets As Me," which talks about how women are not safe from harm, even when simply walking down the street.
- A class visit to the Holocaust Museum that caused Samara Haynes to ponder the reactions of her classmates in "What You See."
- Sarah Young's poem "Kyke Dyke," where she writes of discovering other Jewish lesbians who helped reaffirm her identity.
Although "Salt and Honey" was written by teens for teens, this work will also resonate with adults. Parents of teenagers may want to read this book and discuss it with them in order to better understand how they view the world. The work includes artist statement's about the drawings and paintings featured, and questions to stimulate discussion. jGirls is to be commended for publishing the thoughts of these Jewish teens. --Rachel Esserman, Executive Editor, The Reporter Group, Jewish Federation of Greater Binghamton.
Book Information
ISBN 9781681150772
Author Elizabeth Mandel
Format Paperback
Page Count 176
Imprint Behrman House Inc.,U.S.
Publisher Behrman House Inc.,U.S.
