Jewish or Gendered? (A ' drash in Two Parts): Editor's Note.

The editors of Studies in Gender and Sexuality are pleased to award the 2012 Symonds Prize to Shirly Bahar for “Coming Out as Queen: Jewish Identity, Queer Theory, and the Book of Esther.” Here, I introduce Bahar's article, as well as Erin Williams Hyman's “Hedging Against Heritage: Jewish Identity Reconsidered” and Jill Salberg's “Reimagining Yentl While Revisiting Feminism in the Light of Relational Approaches to Gender and Sex.” Taken together, these articles contrast generalized Jewish identity (an essentialist premise iterated in discourse when literary subjects come out as Jewish) with multiplicity that adheres in Jewishness when legible features of the subject such as sexuality and gender are brought into play through coming out. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]