Judy Batalion

Judy Batalion was born and raised in Montreal, where she grew up speaking English, French, Yiddish and Hebrew, and trying to stay warm. She studied the history of science at Harvard then moved to London to pursue a PhD in art history. All the while, she worked as a curator, researcher, editor, lecturer, comic, MC, script-reader, dramaturge, performer, actor, producer, translator server, and a temp – at a temp agency. Eventually, Batalion transformed these experiences into material, and wrote essays and articles for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Vogue, the Forward, Salon, the Jerusalem Post and many other publications. Her stories about family relationships, the generational transmission of trauma, pathological hoarding and militant minimalism came together in her book "White Walls: A Memoir About Motherhood, Daughterhood, and the Mess in Between." White Walls was optioned by Warner Brothers for whom Batalion is currently developing the TV series “Cluttered.”

Back in 2007, during her phase of career promiscuity, Batalion was doing research on strong Jewish women at the British Library when she happened to come across a dusty, old Yiddish book. Freuen in di Ghettos (Women in the Ghettos), a Yiddish thriller about “ghetto girls” who hid revolvers in teddy bears, bribed Nazis with whiskey and pastry, and blew up German supply trains, became the inspiration for The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos (William Morrow/HarperCollins, 2021). The Light of Days is a New York Times bestseller and won a National Jewish Book Award and a Canadian Jewish Literary Award. It was adapted into an award-winning children’s book, will be translated into 23 languages, and was optioned by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners, for whom Batalion is co-writing the screenplay. (Gey veys… Who knew that Yiddish would become her cash cow?)

Batalion lives with her husband and three children in New York City.