Say Their Names

Jessica Ursell is a veteran JAG officer of the United States Air Force, poet, and public speaker against antisemitism and bigotry. The granddaughter of survivors of the Holocaust, Soviet gulags, and a descendant of a Taíno great-grandma, she understands in her bones what happens when intolerance, indifference, and ignorance take root in society. Jessica lives with her husband in Southern Italy where she writes essays and poetry addressing the complex interplay between trauma, power, love, loss, and madness. Her essays, At the Country Club with Superman; Standing Up for the Voiceless: My Fight with Royalty in Anne Frank’s House; What My Zayda Taught Me About Tikkun Olam; and The Scream of a Post-October 7th Jew were published by The Jewish Writing Project in July and October 2022 and January and June 2024. Jessica‘s poems, Sedimented Rock and Climbing Vesuvius in Stilettos were published by Writing In A Woman’s Voice in November 2023 and May 2024. Jessica’s poem, A Still-Life Collage of Lost Objects, appears in the February 2024 print issue of Down in the Dirt magazine as well as online (v. 216 Scars Publications). Multiple military audiences, most recently the United States Navy, Sixth Fleet, have heard Jessica speak about the importance of never being a bystander to evil which she believes is the fundamental lesson of the Holocaust.