She Loves Her: Later-In-Life Lesbian Confessions on Marriage, Divorce, and Coming Out Stronger Than Ever

It’s a well-known truism that the older a woman gets, the more invisible she becomes. This is even more true the further she sits from the heteronormative ideal: if she is not cis, or straight, or if she is fat, an immigrant, or a woman of color. That invisibility is exactly what makes a collection like this feel so necessary. In She Loves Her, Judith Yahav offers a glimpse into the lives of women we rarely get to see or hear (not even in fiction) by giving them space to tell their own stories in their own voices. That alone is powerful. Most queer narratives still center men. And while there are now (thankfully) many coming-out and love stories for younger generations, the women who came before, and who had far fewer options, are often overlooked. Within that group, women who only came to live openly as women who love women later in life are, in a sense, doubly erased. Though these stories exist everywhere in real life, they rarely get written down. This book helps correct that. What a special gift this collection turned out to be! Also unique to this book is the specific backdrop of Israel: immigration (whether willing or not), military and kibbutz life, the layering of languages and ethnic identities, tensions between religious and secular worlds, and the presence of Palestinian life within the Zionist project. Not everything is explored in depth, and much is left unexplored, but as these are personal narratives, not a comprehensive analysis, that feels okay. Bottom…

So glad that this book is now out in English! It is a trailblazing, candid treasure chest of untold lives: Older women narrating their searches and discoveries, their belated recognition or expression of desire and love for women. In Judith Yahav's She Loves Her a cohort that has been overlooked, ignored and sidelined now speaks out.

This extraordinary, ground-breaking collection of first-person narratives is a gift to English readers. You will read Judith Yahav's interviews with courageous women who take their lives into their own hands in mid-life and beyond, despite being raised with narrow heteronormative models of marriage and family. Each story enriches our understanding of the complex and mysterious interweaving of self, family, belonging, and truth. An important contribution to our understanding of the challenges of identity, sexuality, and community as we age and discover new paths towards fulfillment and wholeness.