Debra Gordon Zaslow was ordained as a maggidah (Jewish storyteller) by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi in 1995. She travels nationwide telling stories and leading workshops in storytelling and writing. She holds an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her short stories have been included in numerous anthologies. Debra recently retired from thirty years of teaching storytelling at Southern Oregon University. She runs a maggid training program (Jewish storytelling and Torah teaching) with her husband Rabbi David Zaslow in Ashland, Oregon, and together they lead Shabbat weekends across the country.

The Jewish Women's Storytelling Collective began in 2022 when Debra Gordon Zaslow and five female graduates of her maggid training program expressed frustration with the lack of female protagonists in Jewish folklore.