Reviews & Press

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Birthright was published on November 5, 2019. On this page, you will find reviews, interviews, and other coverage.

  • “Erika Dreifus’ first book of poems, ‘Birthright’ (Kelsay Books), includes the very timely — and timeless — ‘Miriam, Quarantined,’ in which the poet imagines what the biblical Miriam might have been pondering while in quarantine. ‘Dayenu’ inspires readers to think anew of the four children mentioned in the Haggadah. And ‘A Single Woman of Valor” is a brave and beautiful work.’ Her reflective poems are stories, some based in her study of Jewish texts, all informed by a deep engagement with Jewish life.“—Sandee Brawarsky, Culture Editor, The Jewish Week, in a feature on Passover gifts for 2020/5780.
  • “Erika Dreifus is one of our brightest literary lights….‘Birthright’ is exceptionally rich and provocative, earnest and intimate, fully as accessible as an overheard conversation and yet deeply rooted in both Jewish history and Jewish arts and letters.” From Jonathan Kirsch’s Jewish Journal review.
  • “These accessible meditations on being a Jewish woman, a Zionist, a critical consumer of social media, and a witness to violence committed and averted reflect a soul dedicated to repairing the world with smarts, spirit, sincerity, and a bit of snark.” So writes Helene Meyers in a review of Birthright for Lilith.
  • “The poems in Birthright often feel like sto­ries in minia­ture, replete with set­ting, char­ac­ter, dia­logue, and plot, across a wide vari­ety of reg­is­ters and con­texts, rang­ing from bib­li­cal to per­son­al, famil­iar to his­tor­i­cal, lit­er­ary to polit­i­cal. Poems that draw from bib­li­cal sto­ries are inter­spersed with per­son­al sto­ries, which pro­duc­tive­ly com­pli­cates both types of poems.” From Lucy Biederman’s review for the Jewish Book Council.
  • If you’d like a side order of music with your poetry, you’ll want to check out this eclectic, Birthright-inspired playlist that I assembled for Largehearted Boy.
  • In November 2019, Kelsay Books nominated one of Birthright‘s poems for a Pushcart Prize. That poem, “A Single Woman of Valor,” was also published by the Jewish Book Council’s PB [Paper Brigade] Daily earlier in the month.
  • Another excerpt: “Hypothetical Life,” which appears in Birthright, has been re-published by YourDailyPoem.com.
  • “Mannheim,” another poem from Birthright, has been re-published on the website of WinningWriters.com.
  • So many thoughtful questions came my way in this Q&A with Christi Craig.
  • You’ll find details on the sequencing of the poems in the collection, and more, in this Book Q&A with Deborah Kalb.
  • In a “Poet’s Notebook” feature for The Whole Megillah I answer a few questions from Barbara Krasner.
  • “Have you faced any challenges as an author that are specific to your identity as a Jewish writer in this time and place?” That’s just one of the questions Faye Rapoport DesPres posed to me for her “Writers in the Trenches” online interview series.
  • “The poems in ‘Birthright’…have a profoundly Jewish sensibility. They focus on ancestors immigrating from Germany to escape persecution in the years preceding the Holocaust, prayer and ritual, biblical characters, and Israel. They are deeply personal, critical and wry, and aggressively political.” Ahead of the November launch, New Jersey Jewish News‘s Johanna Ginsberg profiles the book and its author.
  • The Jewish Week’s Fall Arts Guide Book List introduces Birthright to readers, noting that the book “includes midrash-like reflections on traditional texts, riffs on contemporary events and personal stories about family and faith, anchored in history.”
  • “If you’re someone who appreciates fresh poetry with overtly Jewish themes, this is the collection for you.” So writes Alma‘s Emily Burack in a preview of “Favorite Books for Fall.”