Susannah Heschel


Continuing in the long tradition of Jewish women causing trouble Susannah Heschel, Julia Neuberger and Lynne Segal explored the impact of the Women’s Movement on Judaism and vice versa. These three formidable women discussed the contradictions and inspirations that come with the overlapping territory at the intersections of Feminism and Jewishness which has shaped their own lives as educators, agitators and activists.

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav was a religious Jew responsive to the challenge of Jewish secularism; Franz Kafka, a thoroughly secular Jew who loved the paradoxical parables of hasidism. Their stories and their lives reflect deeply on one another. Each died tragically young of tuberculosis. And each, at the very end, asked a close friend to burn his books. In an era of digital books, what do their stories tell us about the deeper meaning of the written word for the people of the book?
