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Israeli novelist and essayist Yochi Brandes (Hebrew: יוכי ברנדס) was born in Haifa on February 19, 1959, to Yaffa (Miriam Sheindl) and Rabbi Yitzhak Ya’akov Rabinowitz, the Biala Rebbe of Ramat Aharon. In her youth, she spent one year living in the home of her grandfather (her mother’s father) Rabbi Avraham Abish Kanner, the Tshechov Rebbe. She is married to Ofer Brandes and is the mother of four children.

Brandes studied in ultra-Orthodox Bais_Yaakov schools in Petach Tikva and in Haifa, as well as at the Michlalah Jerusalem Torah College, Bar-Ilan University, and the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary. She holds a B.A. in Bible and Education and an M.A. in Bible and Jewish Studies.

For many years, Yochi Brandes taught Bible and Jewish Thought in high schools from various streams of Israeli society (National Religious, Masorti, and Public schools), as well as at Jerusalem’s Beit Shmuel and Herzliya’s Interdisciplinary Center (IDC). She trained teachers for Judaic Studies subjects and wrote curriculum in Bible and Judaism. Today, she continues to teach Bible through appearances open to the general public.

In 1999, Brandes founded the “Judaism Here and Now” book series, published by Yediot Aharonot Press, through which approximately 50 books have been published. Authors in this series have included academics, educators, thought leaders, and writers, and the series has reached a broad readership, religious and secular alike.

In 2011, the Habima Theatre produced Brandes’s play “Ki Vanu Vaharta” (“For You Have Chosen Us”), directed by Itzik Weingarten, with music composed by Ori Vidislavski. The play centers on the identity crises of members of an Israeli family who discover that their mother was the daughter of a Nazi officer. The musical was performed approximately 350 times before the theatre’s recovery plan required its run to end.

Yochi Brandes is involved with contemporary issues of importance to Israeli society and has been a prominent figure for many years on the Israeli media landscape. In the mid-1980s, she hosted a segment on the television show “Tzerufim” (“Combinations”) on Israel’s Channel 1, and she published a column in the Ma’ariv newspaper. In the late 1990s, she published a series of articles on the Jewish holidays in the Ha’aretz newspaper. From 2005 to 2006, she joined the rabbis of the Tzohar organization in the “Parshiot Hashavua” (“Weekly Torah Portions”) television program on Channel 2. In 2013, she published a weekly column in the Israel Hayom ("Israel Today") newspaper.

Literary Work

Brandes’s literary work focuses on central figures from Jewish history who initiated revolutions. Her books are based on Jewish sources from a wide range of time periods and societal segments: the Bible, Rabbinic literature, Jewish thought, Jewish law, Kabbalah, Hasidism, and Zionism. Each of her books is centered on a significant era in the history of the nation of Israel, told from unusual perspectives and intensifying the voices of women.

Her literary work can be divided into two phases:

Her first five novels deal with central chapters in the history of Zionism: the Holocaust (Gmar Tov), the Israeli War of Independence (Hagar), the birth of Gush Emunim (Lechabot Et Ha’ahavah), the First Aliyah (Garinim Levanim), and the early days of Tel Aviv (Vidui).

The next five books deal with classical Jewish culture: a novel about the origins of the Biblical monarchies (Melachim Gimmel, translated into English as The Secret Book of Kings), a novel about the creation of Rabbinic Judaism by the ancient Sages (Hapardes Shel Akiva, translated into English as The Orchard), and a novel about the birth of Hasidism through the life and work of the Ba’al Shem Tov (Adele).

Along with these novels, which constitute the major focus of her work, Brandes has published two works of non-fiction: a book of essays on the great women of the Bible (Sheva Imahot), and a collection of articles on contemporary Jewish issues (Hayahadut Shelo Hikarnu).

In all her books, Brandes offers interpretations that differ from the generally accepted versions, usually from the point of view of those groups that lost out in history’s telling, and by accentuating the influence of women.