Jewish Feminist Alumnae Gifts to Brandeis Archives: A Celebration
Panelists
Lori Hope Lefkovitz ‘77 holds the Ruderman Chair in Jewish Studies at Northeastern University, where she directs the Jewish Studies Program and is a professor of English. From 2013-2022, she served as Director of the Northeastern University Humanities Center. Her book, In Scripture: The First Stories of Jewish Sexual Identities, was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. Widely published in the fields of literature, critical theory, and Jewish Women's Studies, her other books include: The Character of Beauty in the Victorian Novel, Textual Bodies: Changing Boundaries of Literary Representation, and (with Julia Epstein) Shaping Losses: Cultural Memory and the Holocaust. Previously, Lefkovitz was the Gottesman Professor of Gender and Judaism and Founding Director of Kolot: The Center for Jewish Women's and Gender Studies at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Under her direction, Kolot developed Rosh Chodesh: It’s a Girl Thing! and the innovative website Ritualwell.org.
Susan Weidman Schneider ‘65, one of Lilith magazine's founding mothers, has been editor in chief since the magazine launched in 1976. Her writing about diverse women's 
lives and work, about the importance of reproductive justice, the persistence of gender stereotyping and more have been credited with moving the needle on feminist change in the Jewish world and beyond. She's the author of three books, including the groundbreaking Jewish and Female (1984) and is editor of a widely praised new anthology of short stories, Frankly Feminist, a Brandeis University Press publication in the HBI Series on Jewish Women. Since 1976, Lilith's mission is to both bear witness to change and to spur change, helping to create greater gender equality in all fields while amplifying women's personal stories. The award-winning Lilith magazine is known for hard-hitting investigative reporting, women's truth-telling memoirs and for its original fiction, poetry and art. Lilith––and Susan Weidman Schneider's work––empower women, girls and nonbinary people of every background to envision and enact positive change in their own lives.
Betsy Platkin Teutsch ‘74, Judaica artist and co-author of the Encyclopedia of Jewish Symbols, is a 1974 Brandeis NEJS major alumna. She is known for her ketubot, Jewish wedding contracts, her illuminations in the Kol Haneshamah Reconstructionist Prayer Book series, and her bestselling tambourines featuring Jewish women in action. Born in Fargo, North Dakota, she lives in Mount Airy in NW Philadelphia with her husband David. They are the parents of two (plus two bonus children-in-law) and try to keep up with their four grandchildren.