Nora Lee Mandel is a member of New York Film Critics Online and the Alliance of Women Film Journalists. After high school weekends spent learning film history at the Museum of Modern Art, she studied film criticism at New York University.

In addition to many years of writing for national, New York City, and Jewish organizations in the arts, education, history, and city planning, her reviews of documentaries and independent and foreign language films, books, television, and music, particularly of Jewish interest, have appeared on Film-Forward.com, FilmFestival

TravelerLilith magazine, the independent Jewish feminist quarterly, and the New Hampshire Jewish Reporter. Her ongoing Critical Guide to Jewish Women in Movies, TV, and Pop Music has been the basis for her presentations at the Forest Hills (NY) Jewish Center and Temple Beth Shalom (Summit, NJ).