I’m Heidi Rabinowitz and I am so happy to be Jewish. The beautiful and varied customs, the focus on deep thought and learning, and the historical connections going back over the centuries, all bring me joy. That’s why I’ve dedicated my career to synagogue librarianship and why I’ve been podcasting about Jewish children’s literature for over a decade. In fact, the 20th anniversary of The Book of Life Podcast will take place in December 2025 – stay tuned, I’m making celebratory plans!
What?
I’m thrilled to share this Jewish Joy series for Multicultural Kid Blogs with you. I’ll be bringing you Q&A’s from diverse intersectional Jewish authors, showcasing the variegated tapestry of Jewish life and books. In each interview, I’ll link back to the author’s appearance on The Book of Life Podcast for you to hear their voice and learn more about them.
Why?
In these turbulent times, with antisemitism at record highs, Jewish Joy is crucial. As poet Toi Derricotte says, joy is an act of resistance. Joyful books invite everyone in, so that Jewish stories can, in the words of Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, become windows as well as mirrors, bringing hope, demystifying the Jewish experience, and building empathy and understanding.
Who?
In the last Jewish Joy post in this series, you met Shoshana Nambi, a Ugandan Jewish picture book author from the Abayudaya community. Today, I’m thrilled to introduce you to Emi Watanabe Cohen, a Japanese Jewish author who writes middle-grade fantasy fiction. Emi appeared on The Book of Life podcast in 2024 to talk about The Lost Ryū and Golemcrafters, as part of the Creature Double Feature mini-arc.
Emi’s writing has a lush quality of mystery to it. She mixes the folklore of her Jewish and Japanese ancestors into a contemporary world burgeoning with magical possibility. At the same time, she sensitively addresses serious philosophical questions about prejudice and generational trauma. I’m pleased to bring you this exclusive interview for Multicultural Kid Blogs, and if you’d like to hear more from Emi in her own voice, please click on the podcast link below.
Q&A with Emi Watanabe Cohen
THE BOOK OF LIFE: Emi, please describe your own Jewish identity, along with any other aspects of your identity that you’d like to share.
EMI WATANABE COHEN: I identify as half-Jewish and half-Japanese. That’s something that’s shifted a lot since childhood. If you’d asked me in the third grade if I was half-Jewish, I would’ve said, “No! You can’t be half a religion!” I think I’d have been quite outraged about it. I’m sure there will be many shifts to come as I get older, but at this moment in my life, Judaism is my people, my language, and my ethnicity. I am Jewish for the same reasons that I’m Japanese.
TBOL: Why is it important to you to include Jewish representation in your writing?
EWC: I don’t think I could write a non-Jewish book—not authentically, anyway. Jewishness is inextricable from who I am and how I live, so if my books aren’t Jewish, how could they be my books?
There’s also the “windows and mirrors” thing, which is very true and very valid. But even if representation didn’t matter, it would still be important to me that my characters be Jewish.
TBOL: About being Jewish: what is hard, and what brings you joy?
EWC: What is hard about being Jewish? Oh, you know, the usual stuff. What brings me joy? The way we manage to laugh about the usual stuff.
TBOL: What do you want the world to know about Jewish people?
EWC: That Judaism is not just an older version of Christianity. We are a people and a tribe. This can be difficult to express, so I don’t blame anyone for not getting it right away—I think the way we explain Jewishness is limited by the fact that we have to use English terms to get the meaning across.
That’s one way I think my Japanese-ness actually simplifies my conception of my Jewishness rather than complicating it, because Shinto is another tradition that’s difficult to explain using Western words. There were some infamous 20th-century surveys showing that a vast majority of Japanese people weren’t religious… despite, you know, all that praying at temples and ritual handwashing. The problem was the way the question was phrased. Do you adhere to a religion? Do you have faith? This framing of religiosity is quite new, not at all universal, and just doesn’t work all that well for ancient traditions—including, I’d argue, Judaism.
TBOL: Please tell us about any Jewish books you’ve written.
EWC: Both my books are Jewish-ish, but Golemcrafters is Jewish with a capital J. It uses the intertextuality of the golem myth to explore what we pretentious folks might call “Jewish historical time.” It’s about an eleven-year-old Japanese-Jewish girl who discovers that she is descended from a long line of powerful golem sculptors. It’s part
portal fantasy, part love letter to Jewish grandparents, and part ode to weird little Jewish girls.
TBOL: What other Jewish books are you excited about, and why?
EWC: This is probably not a very unique or original answer, seeing as it just won multiple major awards, but, OMG, Night Owls by A.R. Vishny. Folklore! Yiddish theatre! Hair angst! What’s not to love?
TBOL: What’s not to love about YOUR work, Emi? Thanks again for sharing your thoughts and your stories with us.
Discover more interviews in the Jewish Joy Series!
Ruth Behar – a Latina Jewish author of middle-grade fiction and picture books and a cultural anthropologist
Richard Ho – a Chinese Jewish picture book author
Emily Bowen Cohen – a Muscogee Jewish author of a middle-grade graphic novel
Veera Hiranandani – an Indian Jewish author of middle-grade and picture books
Andrew Sass – an author who writes middle-grade fiction on Jewish identity, neurodiversity, and gender
Shoshana Nambi – a Ugandan Jewish picture book author from the Abayudaya community
Heidi Rabinowitz
Latest posts by Heidi Rabinowitz (see all)
- Jewish Joy with Rachelle Burk - August 24, 2026
- Jewish Joy with Adam Gidwitz - July 13, 2026
- Jewish Joy with A.R. Vishny - June 15, 2026
This is so relatable! Thanks so much for sharing.
Great interview! I love books with golems!