Cultural Writing. Jewish Studies. This book brings together essays that probe the articulation of Jewishness and femaleness. Showing how female Jewish identity is constructed in Canadian prose works that span the years 1956 to 2004, the essays speak to the writers' preoccupation with cultural identity and create a portrait of how it feels to be Jewish, Canadian, and female. Each contributor seeks to investigate her identity as a Canadian, a Jew, and a woman, as well as to critique prevailing notions of Canada as a country that embraces people of all faiths, of Judaism as open to female participation, and of Jewish women as submissive within marriage. As the first book to focus exclusively on writing by Jewish Canadian women, this collection aims to deepen and broaden the Canadian literary canvas.

Author City: Toronto, ON CAN

Born and raised in Montreal, Ruth Panofsky currently lives in Toronto where she teaches Canadian Literature and Culture at Ryerson University. She has published two volumes of poetry: Lifeline (Guernica, 2001) and Laike and Nahum: A Poem in Two Voices (Inanna, 2007). She is also the author of several scholarly books, most recently The Force of Vocation: The Literary Career of Adele Wiseman (University of Manitoba Press, 2003). Panofsky has received awards from the Canada Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Ontario Arts Council.