[Lambda Literary Review] ‘Milk and Honey: A Celebration of Jewish Lesbian Poetry’ Edited by Julie R. Enszer

What does it mean to be a Jewish writer? To write about the Jewish Lesbian experience? How do we passionately engage with thinking about identity while considering the intersection of both lesbian and Jewish politics and the inherent aversion to labels?  This collection of poetry offers several insights into the hermeneutics of identity in literature and religion.

Milk and Honey examines lesbian spirituality through poems that rework portions of the Torah while addressing one’s experience with faith and looking at the complicated relationship lesbians have had with religion for many years. The work in these pages addresses what Jewish theorist Eduardo Glissant calls root identity; how do LGBTIQ poets see themselves both inside and outside of Judaism? The poetry here connects both intimacy and vulnerability with a woman’s need to be heard, on personal and socio-political levels.

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