Ellen Cassedy

As a speaker, journalist, author of non-fiction books, and Yiddish translator, Ellen Cassedy connects the stories of ordinary people with social issues.

Recent and upcoming speaking engagements include the Kol Ami Congregation in Melrose, PA; the Falmouth Jewish Congregation in Ea. Falmouth, MA; the Annual Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide, Millersville Penn State University; the San Diego Jewish Genealogical Society, San Diego, CA; Am HaYam Cape Cod Havurah; and the National Museum of the Arts, Washington, D.C.

Cassedy is a contributor to Hadassah, The Forward, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Lilith, Bridges, and Utne Reader. Her Yiddish translations appear in Pakn Treger, the magazine of the National Yiddish Book Center and in Beautiful as the Moon, Radiant as the Stars: Jewish Women in Yiddish Stories (Warner Books, 2003).

A former columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, Cassedy has also been published by Redbook, Woman's Day, Pacific News Service, and the New York Times Syndicate Sales Corp.

"Beautiful Hills of Brooklyn," a short film based on Cassedy's award-winning play, stars Joanna Merlin. Bob Balaban is the producer; Ragnar Freidank is the director. The film celebrates the spare beauty of a small but important life.

A founder and former leader of 9 to 5, a national association of working women, Cassedy is the author of two books for women workers. She is a former speechwriter for national labor leaders and for President Clinton, Vice President Gore, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Carol M. Browner, the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Cassedy graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in history. She has two grown children and lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her husband.