Long Ago and Far Away, ‘Our Bodies, Ourselves’ Bonded Us As Women

The announcement that the organization behind Our Bodies, Ourselves will shift its focus to advocacy as of October 1 and no longer update the book made me feel defeated. But the news also stirred up memories.

We became friends in 1982, studying to be teachers of Hebrew literature at Tel Aviv’s Kibbutzim Seminary. To our Israeli schoolmates, we were “the American Jewish immigrant” and “the Arab,” bound by our odd accents…. 

Discovering that Our Bodies, Ourselves was available in Hebrew was a transcendent moment, an antidote to the catcalls we endured on the streets of Tel Aviv. I took the green hardcover off the shelf of Steimatzky’s bookstore and savored the missive from Boston. My hometown was also home to the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, which published that iconic white paperback with the photograph on the cover of three generations of women holding a placard commanding Women Unite.

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