Elevate Difference

Reviews by Ri J. Turner

Ri J. Turner

Ri J. Turner grew up in New Mexico and then went on to study anthropology at Cornell University. Since college, they have worked for a small Jewish LGBTQ nonprofit organization and traveled, studied, and volunteered in Israel / Palestine. Currently, they live in Washington, DC and participate in the AVODAH Jewish Service Corps anti-poverty volunteer program, specifically working at the Bread for the City medical clinic. They care a lot about intersectional anti-oppression work, and have participated in community organizing to end racism, sexism, heterosexism, sizeism, and unequal access to both public and university education. Currently they are learning more about socialism, anarchism, non-violence, interfaith organizing, community building, and food justice.

In addition to book reviews, Ri has written articles about Jewish spirituality and Jewish approaches to social justice. You can find links to all of Ri's writing here.

Elevate Difference recognizes that 'they' is typically used as a plural pronoun and respects Ri's wish to self-identify in this way.

Accountability and White Anti-racist Organizing: Stories from Our Work

“Actively listen... You cannot help if you do not hear... Actively listen...” These words swirl across the cover of Accountability and White Anti-racist Organizing: Stories from Our Work. The book is a collection of eleven articles by white anti-racist activists reflecting on their experiences with accountability.

Transnational Social Work Practice

Transnational Social Work Practice is definitely not a book intended for a popular audience. That it is a textbook was clear to me before I even laid eyes on the book, when I noted that the list price on Amazon.com—for this slim 241-page volume—was $50.

Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things

I was pleased as soon as I ran my fingers over the pleasantly matte dust jacket of Stuff. My pleasure only grew once I dove in: authors Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee smoothly meld case study and psychological analysis for an engaging read.

You Have Given Me a Country

At the beginning of You Have Given Me a Country, author Neela Vaswani writes, “What follows is real, and imagined.” Thus begins Vaswani's memoir, a dreamy collection of reflections on her family's multiracial, multinational history. Ashok Vaswani, Neela's father, was born in Sindh (now a province of Pakistan) before the cataclysm of Partition. As a toddler, Ashok fled with his family to the new state of India, where his father found a job as a traveling railroad physician. Later, Ashok traveled to the US to practice medicine and to leave behind a tense postwar economy and a family that had fractured under the pressure of exile. “To my father, nationality was fickle, unreliable,” writes Neela. “My father said, 'Homeland is in the body,' and 'Land is in the blood.'”

Anarchism and Its Aspirations

Anarchism and Its Aspirations is a collection of several essays that together offer an introduction to modern anarchist thought and its applications. The title essay, which is the first and longest essay in the book, discusses anarchism’s historical and philosophical roots, as well as its fundamental tenets.

Fearless Female Journalists

Fearless Female Journalists is a set of ten short profiles of female reporters, photojournalists, and newscasters hailing from various times and places over the last two centuries. Among the women featured is one of the early pioneers of modern journalism: nineteenth-century American newspaperwoman Nellie Bly, a daredevil stunt reporter.

Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible

Torah Queeries is a compilation of sixty drashot, short exegetical essays, each of which addresses one of the parshiyot, segments of the Torah that comprise the yearly cycle of the reading of the Five Books of Moses. The reason there are sixty drashot rather than the usual fifty-four is because six additional ones are included, each dealing with one of the major Jewish holidays.

Song Over Quiet Lake

In Song Over Quiet Lake, Sarah Felix Burns tells several intertwining stories of loss, love, and healing. The novel centers on an unlikely friendship between a young white woman, Sylvia, and a Tlingit elder, Lydie Jim. Both are students at the University of British Columbia, and they meet when Sylvia is assigned to be Lydie’s tutor.

Transforming Faith: The Story of Al-Huda and Islamic Revivalism Among Urban Pakistani Women

In Transforming Faith, Sadaf Ahmad explores the role of Al-Huda, a women’s Islamic religious school, in promoting the spread of a particular kind of Islam, especially among educated middle- and upper-class women in Islamabad, Pakistan. Ahmad sets the scene by situating her topic in an historical and global context. She provides a broad overview of the various branches of Islam, and she tells the history of Pakistan’s self-conception as an Islamic state.

My Baby Rides the Short Bus: The Unabashedly Human Experience of Raising Kids with Disabilities

My Baby Rides the Short Bus is an anthology of articles written by parents about their firsthand experiences of raising children with disabilities. In addition to their common identity as parents of disabled children, the contributors also share another trait: all of them find themselves outside of the mainstream by virtue of identity or political perspective.

Herizons Magazine (Fall 2009)

I had never heard of the Canadian feminist news magazine Herizons before receiving my copy of the Fall 2009 issue in the mail. In fact, I often avoid globally-oriented, North American feminist articles, because they too often read like a contemporary version of the white man’s burden (“Oh dear, look at the how the brown barbarians treat their women”).
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