HBI Research Awards
"The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos" (Deckle Edge, 2021)
The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute awards grants to support research or artistic projects in Jewish women’s and gender studies across a range of disciplines. The purpose is to support work that has the potential to make a significant contribution to the field of Jewish Gender Studies by using the lens of gender to inform the field of Jewish Studies, by bringing insights from Jewish Studies to the field of Women’s and Gender Studies, and by exploring interreligious collaborations between Jewish women and women of other faiths. Since our founding, HBI has given 327 Research Awards, many that resulted in books, some that were published in the HBI Series on Jewish Women, won book awards and became acclaimed best sellers.
For example, between 2008 and 2010, HBI gave Judy Batalion approximately $9000 over two Translation Awards (now under the Research Award program) and one Research Award for her translation of the Yiddish work, Freuen in di Ghettos, published in 1946 by the Pioneer Women's Organization. The work is a compilation of recollections, letters and poems by and about Jewish women resistors, mainly from the Polish Labor Zionist movement. This research ultimately led to the publication of Batalion’s well-reviewed book, The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos (HarperCollins, 2021) which has been optioned by Steven Spielberg for a major motion picture. It was also excerpted in the New York Times, Opinion section, The Nazi-Fighting Women of the Jewish Resistance.
Watch as Judy Batalion shares how The Light of Days would not have been possible without HBI's early support.