| Jessica Carew Kraft | |
| Birth Date: | May 28, 1978 |
| Birth Place: | Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. |
| Occupation: | Journalist |
Jessica Carew Kraft is a journalist, author, and artist. She is the author of Why We Need To Be Wild: One Woman’s Quest for Ancient Human Answers to 21st Century Problems, a first-person account of learning ancestral skills and the anti-civilization rewilding movement.
Jessica Carew Kraft was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and grew up in the American Midwest. Kraft is the great-great-niece of H. S. Kraft, a blacklisted screenwriter and playwright.
She earned a bachelor's degree in sociology and anthropology from Swarthmore College, a master's degree in cultural anthropology from Yale University, and a master's from The University of London’s Consortium program. She received a Dorot Foundation in Israel fellowship. Her designs for Jewish wedding documents, known as ketubahs, are featured as top-sellers on Ketubah.com.[1]
Kraft has written for publications including The New York Times, The Atlantic,[2] Forbes, Christian Science Monitor, NBC News online, KQED, and other publications. She is a regular contributor to Proto.Life.[3]
Her 2014 article on a racial controversy in American college debate competitions[4] has been widely cited.[5] [6] [7] She has written about unjust genetic testing policy in the Medi-Cal system,[8] Tunisia’s post-revolutionary arts scene, and emerging mindful tech designers at Stanford.[9] She frequently writes about ecological issues and sustainability. Kraft also published graphic memoir essays about motherhood in Motherwell Magazine, Hip Mama, and Mutha Magazine.[10]
Kraft is the author of Why We Need To Be Wild: One Woman’s Quest for Ancient Human Answers to 21st Century Problems. The book was called "A great read for naturalists, those interest in rewilding, survivalists, and anyone searching for a different way of life" by Booklist,[11] and a "spiritual field guide" by Alta Magazine.[12] It was chosen as an August 2023 selection on Next Big Idea and excerpted in Big Think.[13] The author has been profiled in several publications that depict her use of ancestral skills in urban contexts.[14] [15]