Jewish Women's Voices
Jewish Women’s Voices at The Oxford Centre for Life-Writing
Jewish Women’s Voices is an initiative set up in collaboration between Dr Kate Kennedy, Director of the ‘Oxford Centre for Life-Writing’, and Dr Vera Fine-Grodzinski, a scholar of Jewish social and cultural history. The Programme is the first of its kind at any UK academic institution.
Formerly known as Writing Jewish Women’s Lives, the Vera Fine-Grodzinski Programme has been renamed Jewish Women’s Voices to reflect its growing scope and vision. Launched in October 2023, the Programme celebrates the life-writing of Jewish women often underrepresented in mainstream history accounts. The Programme is a three-term seminar series dedicated to exploring the diverse experiences of Jewish women across centuries, countries, and cultures.
In its first year, it hosted British scholars, writers, and practitioners, creating a vibrant platform for research, discussion, and creative exploration. It highlights the vital roles Jewish women have played in shaping social and cultural history, celebrating their contributions through interdisciplinary and cross-generational writing and conversations.
The seminars are free, open to the public, and welcome national and international audiences in person and via Zoom. In its inaugural year, we welcomed Professor Andrea Hammel, Professor, writer and film-maker Devorah Baum, writer and campaigner Lisa Appignanesi, and poet, broadcaster and publisher Dr Aviva Dautch, who explored diverse themes from traditional roles to struggles of achieving equality, to refugee narratives to women’s experiences during the Holocaust, and Jewish women’s art and life-writing today.
Alongside regular seminars, in 2024-2025, the Programme will appoint a ‘Scholar-in Residence’. Jewish Women’s Voices thus continues to provide a platform for national and international scholars to engage in interdisciplinary and cross-generational writing and conversation. By engaging with rich and varied narratives, it celebrates the resilience, creativity, and diversity of Jewish women’s voices.
We invite you to join us for another year of lively, thought-provoking events as we explore and celebrate the stories of Jewish women across time and place.
Register for all our events here.
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What’s in a logo?
The logo for Jewish Women’s Voices incorporates olive and almond branches, symbols rich in meaning drawn from the Torah. The olive branch has long been associated with peace, wisdom, and endurance, while the almond branch represents diligence, awakening, and inspiration across time and place. Together, these symbols embody the Programme’s hopes: to foster creativity, insight, and resilience through writing and scholarship.
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Dr Vera Fine-Grodzinski was born to Hungarian Jewish parents, grew up in Italy, Austria, and Germany before she settled in London, with time spent intermittently in Israel and America.
Vera studied at the ‘Frankfurt School’ at the J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and was awarded an MA and PhD from University College London. Her doctoral dissertation is entitled ‘French Impressionism and German Jews: The Making of Modernist Art Collectors and Art Collections in Imperial Germany’ is a study of pioneering Jewish art dealers, private collectors and public philanthropists before World War One. Her historical Memoir ‘Always on the Move’ is awaiting publication.
Vera is an independent exhibition curator, writer and lecturer in modern Jewish social and cultural history. She attends national and international conferences, and her articles have been published in academic and cultural journals.
- Find and register for the seminars here.
- To stay up to date with the Jewish Women’s Voices seminars, sign up for the OCLW newsletter here.
- Watch recordings of our previous seminars here.
- If you’re interested in presenting your work at a future Jewish Women’s Voices seminar, send an abstract of your proposed paper and your bio to OCLW’s Events Manager, Dr Eleri Watson.
