Wendy Zierler is a rabbi, writer, and a professor of Modern Jewish Literature and Feminist Studies at a rabbinical school. Her academic career has been dedicated to teaching modern Hebrew and Jewish literature to future rabbis, cantors and educators. Much of her work argues for the relevance of modern Jewish literary texts to Jewish life and classical learning, and for finding ways for new books to live alongside or inside old ones. Zierler’s scholarship has also entailed translating and interpreting modern Hebrew literature from a feminist and gender studies standpoint, with a focus on Hebrew women poets and prose writersand how they have rewritten and translated the traditional script in the context of women’s experience.

She holds the position of Sigmund Falk Professor of Modern Jewish Literature and Feminist Studies at Hebrew Union College in New York. Prior to joining HUC she was a Research Fellow in the English Department of the University of Hong Kong. She earned a Ph.D. and M.A. from Princeton University; a B.A. from Stern College of Yeshiva University; and an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. In June 2021, she received rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva Maharat. She also serves as Co-Editor of Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History.

As a creative writer she has written a youth novel, entitled, The Return of Gerda Werthheimer and two collections of linked stories.