About Jewish Fiction .net


Welcome to 
Jewish Fiction .net, the only English-language journal, either in print or online, devoted exclusively to the publishing of Jewish fiction. We showcase the finest contemporary writing on Jewish themes (either written in, or translated into, English), and provide an online community for writers and readers of Jewish fiction from around the world.

In our first thirteen years, we have published nearly 600 stories or novel excerpts, originally written in 21 languages: Albanian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish), Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Turkish, and Yiddish. Jewish Fiction .net is truly an international journal and we have readers in 140 countries.

We are very honoured to have published fiction by such eminent writers as Elie Wiesel, Aharon Appelfeld, Nava Semel, A.B. Yehoshua, Natan Zach, Amir Gutfreund, Chava Rosenfarb, Gabriel Josipovici, Savyon Liebrecht, George Jonas, Yente Serdatsky, and Yoram Kaniuk, as well as many fine writers not yet well-known. We also are honoured that one of our stories (“The Ba’al Shem’s Daughter” by Glenn Gitomer) was selected for the Pushcart Prize this year and published in the 2023 Pushcart Prize anthology. 

As the founder and editor-in-chief of Jewish Fiction .net, I see this journal as a means to bring together in one place first-rate Jewish fiction from around the globe, thus allowing readers to experience simultaneously the rich diversity that exists within Jewish culture and the core elements that unite us. Jewish Fiction .net is completely independent of any organization or funding body, relying entirely on donations from its readers, and we are proud that with our readers' support we are able to keep our journal free of charge and therefore accessible to all.

Dr. Nora Gold 
 
 
 

About The Founder and Editor - Dr. Nora Gold



Nora Gold is a prize-winning writer and the author of five books: Marrow and Other Stories (winner of a Canadian Jewish Book Award and praise from Alice Munro); Fields of Exile (winner of the 2015 Canadian Jewish Literary Award); The Dead Man (2016, awarded a Canada Council Translation Grant and published in Hebrew); 18: Jewish Stories Translated From 18 Languages (2023, praised by Cynthia Ozick and Dara Horn); and In Sickness and In Health / Yom Kippur in a Gym (two novellas) forthcoming March 1, 2024.


From 1990-2000 Dr. Gold was a tenured professor of social work. She left full-time academia in 2000 and for the next eighteen years was affiliated (first as a Scholar and then for six years as its Writer-in-Residence) with OISE/University of Toronto's Centre for Women's Studies in Education. This centre closed in 2018 but Gold continued, until recently, to coordinate the highly regarded reading series she started there, the Wonderful Women Writers Series, housed at the Toronto Public Library.

In addition to her literary writing, Dr. Gold has scholarly publications to her credit, as well as seven funded research grants (two from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada), and a PhD from University of Toronto. Gold is also a co-founder of three progressive Zionist organizations in Canada, and she has been constantly involved over the past thirty-five years in community work and social activism that reflects her commitment to social justice and her love of Israel. noragold.com 
 

About The Advisory Council


Jewish Fiction .net is honoured by the support of its eminent Advisory Council: 

Ellen Frankel

Dr. Ellen Frankel currently works as a freelance writer, editor, and lecturer. After heading The Jewish Publication Society for eighteen years as CEO and Editor in Chief, she now serves as its first Editor Emerita. She is the author of nine books, including The Classic Tales; The Encyclopedia of Jewish Symbols; The Five Books of Miriam: A Woman’s Commentary on the Torah; The Jewish Spirit; The Illustrated Hebrew Bible, two collections of contemporary stories for Jewish young people; and most recently, The JPS Illustrated Children’s Bible. In addition to her books, Frankel wrote the libretto for Andrea Clearfield’s "The Golem Psalms," and is currently at work on two commissioned opera libretti. Frankel travels widely, speaking at synagogues, JCC’s, schools, and conferences.

Joseph Kertes

Joseph Kertes studied English at York University and the University of Toronto, where he was encouraged in his writing by Irving Layton and Marshall McLuhan. Kertes founded Humber College's creative writing and comedy programs. He is currently Humber's Dean of Creative and Performing Arts and is a recipient of numerous awards for teaching and innovation. His first novel, Winter Tulips, won the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour. Boardwalk, his second novel, and two children's books, The Gift and The Red Corduroy Shirt, met with critical acclaim. His latest novel, Gratitude, has won a Canadian National Jewish Book Award and the U.S. National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. 

Michael Kramer

Michael P. Kramer is director of the Anne Shachter-Smith Memorial Project in Literature and former director of the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. He is the author of Imagining Language in America (Princeton), editor of New Essays on Seize the Day (Cambridge), and co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Jewish American Literature and Modern Jewish Literatures: Intersections and Boundaries (Pennsylvania). He is the founding editor of MAGGID: A Journal of Jewish Literature (Toby Press), co-organizer of Kisufim: The Jerusalem Conference of Jewish Writers, and is currently working on a translation of S.Y. Agnon's And The Crooked Shall Be Made Straight

Norman Manea

Born in Bukovina, Romania. Deported as a child to the concentration camp in Transnistria and persecuted by the Communist dictatorship in Romania. Left Romania in 1986, lived one year in West Berlin and moved to the US in 1988. Author of prose and essays translated in more than 20 languages, laureate of several international literary prizes (among them the McArthur and Guggenheim Fellowship Awards, the Italian international Nonino Prize for literature, the Prix Medicis Etrangere), member of the Berlin Academy of Art, decorated with Legion of Honor by the French government. Professor of European Culture and writer in residence at Bard College.

Thane Rosenbaum

Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, and law professor, the author of the novels, The Golems of Gotham, Second Hand Smoke, and the novel-in-stories, Elijah Visible. He is also the author of the forthcoming young adult novel, The Stranger Within Sarah Stein. His articles, reviews and essays appear frequently in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and the Huffington Post, among other national publications. He moderates an annual series of discussions on Jewish culture and politics at the 92nd Street Y. He is the John Whelan Distinguished Lecturer in Law at Fordham Law School. 

Nava Semel, z"l

Born in Israel, published sixteen books, plays, opera libretti and TV scripts, focusing on the painful dialogue in families of Holocaust survivors. Published in the USA, Europe, and Australia. Becoming Gershona received the 1990 National Jewish Book Award in the USA. Her latest novel in English translation, And the Rat Laughed, came out recently. Among her numerous awards: The Israeli Prime Minister Award for Literature 1996, and Woman in Literature of Tel Aviv Award 2007. Her TV drama Whereabouts Unknown, about "new olim" in Israel 1949, is in the making now (Israeli 1st Channel). Her two new books, Head on Backwards (novel) and The Backpack Fairy (children's book) will come out in 2011. 

Alice Shalvi

Born in Germany in 1926, Alice Shalvi was educated in England and immigrated to Israel in 1949. She is professor emerita of English Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and served as principal of Pelech Religious Experimental School for Girls, as well as founding chairwoman of the Israel Womens Network, a pioneering feminist advocacy organization.

Steve Stern

Steve Stern was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. He has published a number of novels, novellas, and story collections, including The Wedding Jester, which won the National Jewish Book Award. He's been the recipient of grants from the Fulbright and Guggenheim foundations and teaches creative writing at Skidmore College in upstate New York. His latest novel is The Village Idiot.
 

About the Manuscript Reviewers & Editors

 

Jewish Fiction .net is very grateful to its dedicated manuscript reviewers and editors. In addition to one individual who chooses to remain anonymous, we thank: 

Charlotte Berkowitz 

Charlotte Berkowitz received her BA in French from Hofstra University and both her MA in Creative Writing and Ph.D. in English from the University of Houston, where she later taught English and Women's Studies. Charlotte's work on the capacity of the Torah to humanize self-styled "man(kind)" appears in the Routledge anthology, Religion in French Feminist Thought, and in such journals as The European Legacy, The Bible and Critical Theory, and Interdiscipli- nary Humanities.

Bernice Heilbrunn

Bernice Heilbrunn received a BA and MA in History and a JD from Harvard and earned a PhD in History from the University of Houston, where she teaches Jewish Studies. She also enjoys teaching adults in the Melton program.

Sidura Ludwig

Sidura Ludwig is a novelist and short story writer. Her collection of short fiction, You Are Not What We Expected, is published in Canada and the US by House of Anansi Press. Her novel, Holding My Breath, was published by Key Porter Books (Canada), Shaye Areheart Books (US) and Tindal Street Fiction (UK) in 2007. She was shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, the Vine Award for Canadian Jewish Literature, and the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award. She holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Sidura lives in Thornhill with her husband and three children.

Julia Wolf Mazow

Julia Wolf Mazow, PhD, was the Fiction Editor of Lilith magazine from 1984-1995, and was on the English faculty of the University of Houston for over 20 years. Her work on 19th century American writers has appeared in various academic journals, and she compiled and edited The Woman Who Lost Her Names (1980, 1981). Other articles have appeared in Bridges, Sojourner, Lilith, and The Jewish Woman: An Historical Encyclopedia.

Carol Ricker

Carol Ricker, PhD, is an educational consultant with a background in English education, women's and cultural studies, and contemporary literary criticism. Her publication record includes articles in refereed journals, book chapters, and curriculum resources. A long time anti-bias educator, she develops materials to encourage students (and adults) to read widely in order to become familiar with events, cultures and values different from their own, and to read critically for how authors address issues of identity, representation and power arrangements in their work.

We also acknowledge with gratitude the past contributions of our various manuscript reviewers and editors.

 


 
 
 
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