# June Levine
> Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/June_Levine
> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/June_Levine.md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Levine
> Source revision: 1343009593
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)
{{short description|Irish journalist, novelist and feminist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
thumb|June Levine in 1994
'''June Levine''' (31 December 1931 – 14 October 2008) was an Irish journalist, novelist and [feminist](/source/feminist), who played a central part in the Irish women's movement.
== Early life and family ==
Levine was born into a Jewish-Catholic family. Her parents Charles Solomon Levine, the son of Jewish parents who fled from Latvia and Muriel Ruth McMahon from Co Clare secretly got married at a Catholic church in Marlborough Street, [Dublin](/source/Dublin) at a young age. June, the eldest of five children, was baptised a Catholic and attended a Jewish school in Dublin. In 1947, the family decided to convert to [Judaism](/source/Judaism).[{{cite news |last1=Kenny |first1=Mary |date=18 October 2008 |title=My extraordinary, contradictory, beautiful friend June Levine |url=https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/my-extraordinary-contradictory-beautiful-friend-june-levine-26485638.html |access-date=28 October 2022}}]
At the age of 15, Levine began her career in journalism for ''[The Irish Times](/source/The_Irish_Times)'' as a teenager instead of pursuing further education''.''[{{cite news |last1=Cullen |first1=Paul |date=15 October 2008 |title=Tributes paid to journalist and feminist author June Levine |publisher=The Irish Times |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/tributes-paid-to-journalist-and-feminist-author-june-levine-1.895663 |access-date=28 October 2022}}] The marriage ended and Levine returned to Dublin with her three children. In 1999, June Levine married her partner of thirty years, psychiatrist [Professor Ivor Browne](/source/Ivor_Browne).[Obituary by Mary Kenny, Irish Independent, 18 October 2008]
== Career ==
In 1965, Levine returned to her career in journalism and was elected assistant editor of the ''Irish Woman’s Journal''. She wrote two best selling books, ''Sisters'', a personal history of the feminist movement, and, with Lyn Madden, ''Lyn: A Story of Prostitution''.[{{cite book |last1=Levine |first1=June |url=https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ucd/reader.action?docID=1621277 |title=Sisters: June Levine the Irish Feminist |date=2009 |publisher=Cork University Press |location=Cork, Ireland |access-date=1 November 2022}}]
She was also involved with the Irish women's movement, alongside figures such as [Mary Kenny](/source/Mary_Kenny), [Margaret Gaj](/source/Margaret_Gaj) and [Mary Maher](/source/Mary_Maher_(journalist)). In 1971 she travelled with other feminists, including Mary Kenny and [Nell McCafferty](/source/Nell_McCafferty), on the so-called "[Contraceptive Train](/source/Contraceptive_Train)" when they travelled to [Belfast](/source/Belfast) to buy condoms.[{{Cite news|title=Writer central to the women's movement|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/writer-central-to-the-women-s-movement-1.898039|newspaper=[The Irish Times](/source/The_Irish_Times)|access-date=10 January 2022|language=en}}][{{cite web |last1=Tiernan |first1=Sonja |author-link=Sonja Tiernan |title=June Levine |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/levine-june-a9670 |access-date=1 November 2022 |website=Dictionary of Irish Biography}}]
== Later life ==
In Levine’s later life, she became interested in [India's women's movement](/source/Feminism_in_India). She only wrote one work of fiction, ''A Season of Weddings'', which was published in 1992 and told the tale of a Dublin woman who went to New Delhi for a Jewish wedding.[Katie Donovan, A. N. Jeffares & Brendan Kennelly, eds., Ireland’s Women (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1994), quotes Sisters: The Personal Story of an Irish Feminist (1982; Poolbeg 1985).]
Levine had a number of strokes in her last year, which impacted her speech. Having regained some ability to communicate, she experienced a second stroke in the first week of October, lost consciousness, and died on 14 October 2008 in Tallaght Hospital. In 2009 Attic Press reissued her book Sisters with a preface written by Levine's friend Nell McCafferty.