EM Broner

Esther Frances Masserman Broner (born July 8, 1927 as Esther Frances Masserman in Detroit , Michigan , † June 21, 2011 in New York ), known as EM Broner , was an American author of novels , short stories , plays , autobiographical and feminist Texts. She especially advocated better integration of women in the rites of the Jewish religion .

life and work

Broner grew up in Detroit as the daughter of Jewish immigrants . Her father was a journalist and historian, her mother came from Poland and had appeared there as an actress in Yiddish theaters . Broner graduated from Wayne State University , where she received her BA in Sociology and MA in Creative Writing, and later was Professor of English and Writer in Residence . She received her PhD from the Union Institute & University in Cincinnati .

Broner initially published short stories that were printed in magazines. Her Jewish heritage developed into the dominant theme of her work, which she reassessed from a feminist perspective. She is considered a former representative of Jewish feminist positions.

In 1966 she published her play Summer in a Foreign Land , written in verse, which focuses on a terminally ill Jewish matriarch with magical powers. Their descendants argue over which of them will inherit the fulfillment of one of the dying's free-standing wishes. The protagonist of Broners first, experimental novel Journal Nocturnal , who in 1968 published along with several short stories, is a politically passive woman as well as the support of both the rejection (by her husband) (by her lover) of the Vietnam War gives its consent .

Because she had the impression that publishers rejected her books because of her gender, she only published later works as EM Broner. With her novel Her Mothers , she made a name for herself as a writer whose main characters reflect on their own strengths. It is the story of a mother whose search for the runaway daughter turns into a search for herself. Broner developed her motifs further in her best known work, the novel A Weave of Women (1978), in which twelve women and three girls in Jerusalem form a utopian- feminist community as a model for a better society. Broner herself lived temporarily with her family in Israel in the 1970s .

In the same decade, Broner and other Jewish feminists such as Gloria Steinem , Bella Abzug , Grace Paley, and Phyllis Chesler started a tradition of alternative seder evenings in New York City that aimed to overcome what they deplored marginalization of women in rites of the Jewish religion. The meetings often took place in Bron's apartment. They became the model for feminist seder evenings all over the world. Broner described the motifs of the so-called Seder Sisters in the book A Woman's Passover Haggadah , which was written in 1978 with the collaboration of Naomi Nimrod. Since no publisher could be found for the work, it first appeared in Ms. Magazine . It was only published in book form in 1994.

Broner has published several books on the further development of Jewish religious practices with a view to better involving women. She describes her activities in this regard in The Telling (1993). The works of Mornings and Mourning are also autobiographical . A Kaddish Journal (1994) and Ghost Stories (1995), each of which deals with the death of a parent and with her own spiritual identity as a Jew. In Mournings and Mourning she describes how she took part in the funeral prayer ( kaddish ) for the father against the opposition of Orthodox Jews .

After years of working on the subject herself, Broner emerged in 1981 as co-editor of The Lost Tradition , a collection of scholarly texts dealing with the negotiation of mother-daughter relationships in literature from antiquity to the 20th century. Over the years, Broner's short stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous magazines including Mother Jones , Ms. Magazine , Tikkun , Women's Review of Literature , North American Review , Commentary, and The Nation . Her short stories have repeatedly been included in anthologies . After Summer in a Foreign Land , she wrote six more plays that were staged in New York, Los Angeles and Detroit, including an adaptation of her own novel A Weave of Women in 1982 . Her latest work is the novel The Red Squad (2009) about peace activists during the Vietnam War and their persecution by the FBI . Broner himself has participated in numerous international events on the subject of peace.

Broner has taught as visiting professor at Columbia University , City University of New York , New York University , University of California, Los Angeles , Ohio State University , Oberlin College , Tulane University , Sarah Lawrence College , and Haifa University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . She has received a number of awards for her work, including two awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York City Award .

Broner was married to Robert Broner , a graphic artist and art professor , from 1948 until his death in 2010 . The marriage resulted in two daughters and two sons. EM Broner died on June 21, 2011 at the age of 83 from complications from an infection that resulted in multiple organ failure.

Publications

prose

• Journal Nocturnal. And Seven Stories. Harcourt, Brace & World, New York 1968.
• Her Mothers. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York 1975, ISBN 0-03-014721-2 .
• A Weave of Women. A novel. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York 1978, ISBN 0-03-018461-4 .
• The Red Squad. A novel. Pantheon Books, New York 2009, ISBN 0-307-37791-1 .

Plays

• Summer Is a Foreign Land. Wayne State University Press, Detroit 1966.
• Colonel Higginson. 1968.
• The Body Parts of Margaret Fuller. 1976.
• A Weave of Women. 1982.
• Letters to My Television Past. 1985.
• The Olympics. 1986.
• Half-a-Man. 1989.

Autobiographical

• The telling. The Story of a Group of Jewish Women Who Journey to Spirituality Through Community and Ceremony. Harper SanFrancisco, San Francisco 1993, ISBN 0-06-060871-4 .
• Mornings and Mourning. A Kaddish Journal. HarperSanFrancisco, San Francisco 1994, ISBN 0-06-061071-9 .
• Ghost stories. Global City Press, New York 1995.

Other

• The Lost Tradition. Mothers and Daughters in Literature. F. Ungar, New York 1980, ISBN 0-8044-2083-1 (as editor with Cathy N. Davidson).
• Bringing Home the Light. A Jewish Woman's Handbook of Rituals. Council Oak Books, San Francisco 1999, ISBN 1-57178-084-X .

literature

• Sara Newman: Broner, EM. In: Encyclopaedia Judaica . 2nd edition. Macmillan, Detroit et al. a. 2007. Vol. 4, p. 204.

Web links

• Portrait of Broner by Kathryn Kish Sklar on the Jewish Women's Archive website .
• Obituary in the New York Times, June 22, 2011.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Paid Notice. Deaths. Broner, Robert. In: New York Times . June 23, 2010.
2. ^ EM Broner, Jewish Feminist, Dies at 83. In: The New York Times. June 22, 2011.