Ordering Coffee in Tel Aviv

Caitlin Wolper is a Brooklyn-based poet whose work examines Judaism, identity, and the female body. Through her time in college and travel with Birthright Israel--and as part of her Master's thesis at Pennsylvania State University--she found inherent conflict between her culture and her beliefs. That thesis became Ordering Coffee in Tel Aviv, a coming-of-age narrative that takes place in both Israel and in the US. Most concerning to her is identity and identification: She identifies with fallen Jewish paratrooper and poet Hannah Senesh but simultaneously can't even use her Hebrew name to order coffee for fear she might not recognize it as her own. Rife with exploration of cyclical family issues and the harrowing experience of growing up a woman, Wolper's first chapbook takes minute, quotidian occurrences and inflects them with thought in brief, succinct poems. Her work has previously appeared in Ghost City Review, Longleaf Review, Yes Poetry, and more; she also has bylines in Rolling Stone, Teen Vogue, MTV News, Reuters, Brooklyn magazine, New York Family, and more.