The Wandering Womb
Essays in Search of Home
Mournful, yearning, and reflective, the essays of S. L. Wisenberg’s The Wandering Womb wonder through Jewish women’s realities in the diaspora.
Wisenberg—the descendant of Russian Jews who immigrated to the American South in the era of Jim Crow—writes about shifting identities, the loss of homelands, and the pressures of changing women’s roles, both within religious traditions outside of them. Her essays are musing and melancholy, drawing universal truths from experiences as personal as a mikveh visit, summer camp stays, and vacations abroad. She reflects on fading relationships in hindsight; she addresses persistent racism in the South.
In an essay about posing as a student rushing a sorority at thirty, when she already had an MFA and publications to her name, Wisenberg asks why, “two decades after the publication of The Feminine Mystique, do we long to be judged on personality and looks and charm and perceived ability to attract the right kind of males? … I still wanted to be the Queen of the Prom.” In an entry following a women’s conference in Wrocław—once a center of Jewish life in Europe, where now only 300+ Jews still live—she notes that “our heritage, Jewish and female, is buried in the backyard ….[a]shes have settled over” it. And in entries about growing older, she admits to complicated takes on not being a mother: “I usually believe myself when I say I never wanted children, though I get sad that I no longer have the option.” “Up Against It,” a collection highlight, is an answer-free, poetic reckoning with dreams that have gathered dust, COVID-19, midlife changes, and the Trump presidency.
Wisenberg is an affecting guide through the nuances, joys, and complications of contemporary Jewish womanhood; The Wandering Womb both celebrates those identities and mourns the past pains that they reflect.
Reviewed by
Michelle Anne Schingler
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
