“Torah doesn’t tell us what being created in the image of God means, or explain how human beings are similar to the invisible, disembodied, time- and space-transcending Creator of the Universe. That, to me, is the point of reading God and the Torah from a transgender perspective: to better understand the kinship between humanity and the inhuman, bodiless God in whose image we are created, a God who does not fit any of the categories through which human beings define ourselves and one another.”
– Joy Ladin in The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective
Biography
Joy Ladin is from Rochester, NY and was born in 1961. She is a poet, scholar, essayist, and the David and Ruth Gottesman Chair in English at Stern College for Women at Yeshiva University. She is also a professor of English at Yeshiva University. [1] Dr. Joy Ladin received her PhD at Princeton, MFA in creative writing from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and BA from Sarah Lawrence College.[2]
In 2007, Dr. Ladin became the first the first openly transgender employee of Yeshiva University, which is an Orthodox Jewish institution.[3] She is the author of eleven books and nine books of poetry. [4] In 2013, her memoir Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey between Genders was published. The memoir reflects on her time coming out as a trans woman after receiving tenure at Yeshiva University. It also touches on the impact her transition had on family located in Shutesbury, MA.
Among various honors and awards, Dr. Ladin has been the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, and a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. [5]
Selected Bibliography
Trans theology:
Gender Inside and Outside the Camp
Poems:
Memoir:
Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey between Genders
Essay:
Ours for the Making: Trans Lit, Trans Poetics
Ted Talk: