This image is the cover for the book The Issue is Power

The Issue is Power

Political activist and writer Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitzbrought an insightful eye and a sharp analytical mind to probe the problems facing America at the turn of the century. First published in 1992, the hard-hitting essays in this collection scan the connections across a wide range of issues: whether the topic is class, racism, Israel and Palestine, war, anti-Semitism, violence against women or violence by women, the issue is power—in all its complexity. Now in its second edition and no less relevant nearly three decades later, her work—dedicated, persistent—continues to remind us of the strength in community.
“Beginning at the intersection of sex, race, class, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, Kaye/Kantrowitz asks hard questions in these essays about power, violence, resistance, and victimhood. ... At the core of The Issue Is Poweris a smart, engaged observer of the world who invites us to think and act with her.”—from the new foreword byJulie R. Enszer“
Here is a book for everyone who dares to want to help make history. Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitzis passionate, strategic, pithy, generous, realistic, controversial, unquenchable—like the best of our movements for change. As a writer and lifelong doer, she gives us reasons to believe in achievable justice, and maps for acting on that belief.”—Adrienne Rich

Melanie Kaye Kantrowitz, Julie R. Enszer

Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, a writer, activist, and professor, was born in 1945 in Brooklyn, and has worked in social change movements since the sixties. She earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Berkeley, where she taught the first Women’s Studies course in the department. She currently teaches at Queens College in the Jewish Studies, History and Comparative Literature departments. She is the author of several books, including: The Issue Is Power (Aunt Lute Books 1992), My Jewish Face & Other Stories (Aunt Lute Books, 1990), We Speak in Code (Motheroot Publications, 1980), and The Colors of Jews (Indiana University Press 2007). Her writings are widely published and anthologized. Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz passed away on July 10, 2018 at age 72.

Spinsters/Aunt Lute Book Company