Based on detailed archival research in three countries, Zelda Kahan Newman tells the story of Kadya Molodowsky, the most prolific woman writer of Yiddish. A feminist before feminism was a movement, Molodowsky wrote poems that still circulate today.

Molodowsky was caught up in nearly all the cataclysms of twentieth century Jewry: the chaos of World War I, an inter-war pogrom, a narrow escape from Nazi Europe, migration to the US, and a failed attempt at life in the young state of Israel.

In her biography, Kahan Newman reveals hitherto unknown facts about Molodosky’s relationship with her husband and father, as well as the importance of a woman-friend and Molodowsky’s feminine persona. The book discusses Molodowsky’s known and not-so-well-known poems, plays, novella and novel, as well as their historical and social context. Finally, the reader gets to see the irony of this writer’s end of life: hailed in the country that would abandon her language, and ignored in the country she valued dearly.