Jo-Ann Mort is a writer and journalist with a special emphasis on Israel, The Middle East and the Jewish community. She is also a media and strategic communications specialist based in New York City. Her freelance articles and book reviews have appeared in The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times Opinion Section, The Forward newspaper (where she was also a columnist), The Jerusalem Report Magazine, Dissent Magazine (where she is a member of the editorial board), Salon, The LA Weekly, and elsewhere. She is co-author, with Gary Brenner, of the recently published book, Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in Todayýs Israel? (Cornell University Press). She has also written widely about the U.S. trade union movement and politics and is the editor of the 1999 book, Not Your Fatherýs Union Movement: Inside the New AFL-CIO, published by Verso Press.

In the 1980s, Jo-Ann Mort worked with Michael Harrington and was the director of the Democratic Agenda project led by Harrington, which brought together progressive unions, academics, elected officials, and activists inside the Democratic Party. She has worked in various capacities in politics, publishing and advocacy, including as the first executive director of the Womenýs Commission of the American Jewish Congress. For thirteen years, she was director of communications for the labor union Unite and one of its predecessor unions, The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union. She also directed the Sidney Hillman Foundation, a journalism foundation sponsored by UNITE. Since 2000, she has been director of communications for U.S. Programs at the Open Society Institute where she also oversees some communications and journalism grantmaking.

She is a member of the national board of Americans for Peace Now and of the advisory board of The Bronfman Center, New York University Hillel. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Brooklyn, New York.