Oh, I am so heartbroken by the news that Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz has died after a very long struggle with Parkinson’s! It is no exaggeration to say that Melanie changed my life. When I was a 21-year-old undergrad, she came to Oberlin College, where I was a student, and she read from her incredible book of stories, My Jewish Face, and met with the little anti-Zionist queer Reconstructionist-ish group I was part of. She showed me a version of Jewishness that was so unfamiliar and so meaningful to me, and she told me about Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (a group she had just that year help to establish), and many, many other things, and within two years, I was living in New York City, working at JFREJ, and my girlfriend was subletting Melanie’s apartment on 106th (?) Street and Manhattan Avenue. As a tender and confused young queer Jew and human I learned so much by reading her writing, working alongside her, talking to her over soup in the booths of Manhattan diners, and in so many other places and ways. A beautiful writer and a beautiful human, Melanie reached across the many divides that separated us and pulled me through to another world. Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, presente. Your memory will forever be an incredible blessing for me.
—Rachel Mattson