A native Californian, Julie has lived in Israel since 2012. Gidon Lev is her life partner.
Veteran essayist Julie Gray authored the award-winning book The True Adventures of Gidon Lev. Richard Pike represents Julie at C&W Literary/Curtis Brown. Her next book, Let's Make Things Better, co-written with Gidon Lev, will be available from Pan MacMillan/Hachette in 2024. Julie's essays have appeared in The Huffington Post, The Times of Israel, Moment Magazine, The Jewish Journal, the NY Post, Hip Mama, the Sanskrit Literary Journal, MovieMaker Magazine, and others.
Julie has taught storytelling at Oxford University, Warner Bros. Studios, West England University in Bristol, Cal Arts Los Angeles, The London Screenwriter's Festival, The Willamette Writer's Conference in Portland, The Tel Aviv Writer's Salon, the Haifa Film Festival, the University de San Francisco in Quito, Ecuador, the Weitzman Institute and the IDC in Herzliya, Israel.
Deeply committed to empowering storytellers and amplifying marginalized voices, Julie has volunteered with The Middle East Peace Initiative, USAID, Combatants for Peace, The Global Peace Village, Kids for Peace, Amnesty International, and the Afghan Women's Writing Project.
Editing
Working with writers of fiction and narrative nonfiction, Julie provides story development and consultations.
Julie is the force behind the viral social media accounts of her life partner, Holocaust survivor Gidon Lev. Her innovative, compelling content and meaningful engagement about Holocaust education and human rights advocacy have educated millions of social media users and attracted significant press coverage for @thetrueadventures. Julie worked closely with gaming pioneer Luc Bernard to create a multi-panel display about Gidon Lev and the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Fortnite's Voices of the Forgotten Museum.
Creating connections and community between content creators and their digital allies in the fight against antisemitism, Julie works with researchers at Hebrew University, the ADL, and Combatting Antisemitism Online to advocate for a safer online experience for minorities. She has spoken at the European Jewish Association in Prague and led workshops for Holocaust educators at Yad Vashem and content creators at Holocaust memorial sites in Germany, Poland, and Belarus.