In The Lives of Jessie Sampter, Sarah Imhoff tells the story of an individual full of contradictions. Jessie Sampter (1883–1938) was best known for her Course in Zionism (1915), an American primer for understanding support of a Jewish state in Palestine. In 1919, Sampter packed a trousseau, declared herself “married to Palestine,” and immigrated there. Yet Sampter’s own life and body hardly matched typical Zionist ideals. Although she identified with Judaism, Sampter took up and experimented with spiritual practices from various religions. While Zionism celebrated the strong and healthy body, she spoke of herself as “crippled” from polio and plagued by sickness her whole life. While Zionism applauded reproductive women’s bodies, Sampter never married or bore children; in fact, she wrote of homoerotic longings and had same-sex relationships. By charting how Sampter’s life did not neatly line up with her own religious and political ideals, Imhoff highlights the complicated and at times conflicting connections between the body, queerness, disability, religion, and nationalism.

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"Sarah Imhoff’s The Lives of Jessie Sampter is a thought-provoking exploration ... [Imhoff's] attention to method and multifaceted storytelling succeed in getting us closer to understanding all of Sampter’s complex queer, disabled, and Zionist lives."

"The Lives of Jessie Sampter is a master class in superb and scintillating writing. Imhoff engages deeply with queer theory and disability studies yet manages to distill them to their core and render them readily intelligible, such that the book serves as an excellent introduction to disability studies for Jewish studies scholars.' - American Jewish History