Ellen Frankel, serves on the Reclaiming Judaism Press Editorial Board. She is co-editor of the Reclaiming Judaism Press publication Mitzvah Stories: Seeds for Inspiration and Learning and New Mitzvah Stories for the Whole Family. Dr. Frankel served for eighteen years as the Editor in Chief and CEO of The Jewish Publication Society, and currently serves as its first Editor Emerita. She received her B.A. from the University of Michigan and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton.
Ellen Frankel is the author of ten books, among them The Classic Tales; The Encyclopedia of Jewish Symbols; The Five Books of Miriam, also available in Hebrew as Midrash Miryam; The Jewish Spirit: A Celebration in Stories and Art, and The Illustrated Hebrew Bible. She contributed to the ten-volume commentary series, My People's Prayerbook; to Three Testaments: Torah, Gospel, and Quran, edited by Brian Arthur Brown; and co-edited Mitzvah Stories with Rabbi Goldie Milgram.
Dr. Frankel has also published three books for young people--Choosing To Be Chosen, a collection of stories for Jewish pre-teens, and a sequel, Tell It Like It Is: Tough Choices for Today's Teens. Her JPS Illustrated Children's Bible, won the 2010 National Jewish Book Award.
Several of Ellen Frankel's portraits of biblical women were set to music by composer Andrea Clearfield in her oratorio, Women of Valor, which premiered in Los Angeles in 2000, and she also wrote the libretto for Clearfield's oratorio, "The Golem Psalms," which premiered in Philadelphia in 2006. Dr. Frankel's first opera, Slaying the Dragon, with music by composer Michael Ching, had its world premiere in Philadelphia in 2012.
Dr. Frankel travels widely as a storyteller, lecturer, and scholar-in-residence. She has taught literature and writing to undergraduates, gifted students, business professionals, and educators. She has received numerous awards and honors, including Hadassah's Myrtle Wreath Award and Brandeis University's Bernard Reisman Award for Professional Excellence.