Nice Jewish Girls: Growing Up in America

"While nearly every Jewish female reader will find herself reflected here, the poignancy of these stories will be felt by readers of all ethnicities."--Library Journal

Chicken soup and Barbra Streisand, lost fathers and first dates, Hebrew school and Queen Esther, seders and seductions. In this insightful, original anthology, forty-five American Jewish writers explore the richness of their shared heritage, from the tragic to the trivial.

In memoirs, fiction, and poetry new and favorite writers like Grace Paley, Amy Bloom, Vivian Gornick, and Laura Cunningham brilliantly reveal the challenges of coming of age as a Jewish woman in America today.

What have we lost that our mothers and grandmothers had? Do we still feel close ties to family and community? Can we make a decent pot roast?

This spirited collection is full of humor and wisdom, memory and affection--and there isn't a Jewish girl (nice or otherwise) who won't find herself reflected in these vibrant pages.

Marlene Adler Marks, whose column, ＂A Woman’s Voice,＂ for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal revealed her many passions, from politics and education to cancer to hot dogs with sauerkraut, was the recipient of several Rockower and Smolar awards, the highest honors in Jewish journalism. She died in 2002.

Grace Paley was a short story writer, poet, pacifist, political activist, and professor. She was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for Fiction, the Edith Wharton Award, the Rea Award for the Short Story, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and the Jewish Cultural Achievement Award for Literary Arts. She died in 2007.

Laura Shaine Cunningham is a playwright and journalist whose fiction and nonfiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, Vogue, and Mirabella, among other publications. The recipient of numerous awards and fellowships for her writing and theatrical work, Cunningham divides her time between New York City and her ＂place in the country.＂

Dinah Berland is a poet whose work has appeared in The Antioch Review, Ploughshares, and The Iowa Review, among other journals and anthologies. She lives in Los Angeles, where she works as a book editor for the J. Paul Getty Museum. Visit her on the Web at www.dinahberland.com.

Persis Knobbe is an author of short stories. She writes periodically about her journey with her late husband through the throes of Alzheimer’s disease.