Reading Jewish
How the People of the Book can help the Jews who write them. Plus, The Creative Pause with author Sarah Ansbacher.
These are complicated times to be a Jew. It’s also a particularly challenging time to be a Jewish writer.
The literary world has given us the cold shoulder. My own personal examples are small, hardly worth noting. But friends and colleagues have suffered greatly of late — their books review-bombed, their author events disrupted or cancelled, their essays taken down with blatant anti-Israel and antisemitic zeal. The effect on metrics like sales is self-evident. The emotional impact, the feeling of being boxed into a literary corner, one that excludes Jews, is equally undeniable.
Many publications are unabashed, stating boldly that they will not accept work by a Zionist or anyone who is a supporter of Israel, though this is more or less code for anyone Jewish. They defame Israel for all the usual misinformed, inaccurate reasons — that it’s a genocidal, apartheid, colonizing state.
My thanks go out to those places and people who do have our backs.
But the situation breaks my heart.
Though I could go on and on, my smart, generous friend Michelle Cameron, author of Babylon: A Novel of Jewish Captivity (talk about a timely read - grab a copy!), articulates it poignantly in this important Jewish Writers Need Your Help! edition of her newsletter.
The bottom line is this: Support Israeli writers and Jewish writers everywhere, however you can.
Let me count the ways.
Buy their books. As often as your budget allows. I know Pesach is costly, but now is a perfect time. There are plenty of long chag and Shabbos afternoons to fill. Take a book with you on a Chol Hamoed outing. Bring one as a hostess gift. Also, children’s books happen to make perfect afikomen presents.
After you read them, review them. On Amazon, for example, the more reviews a book gets, the higher its ranking in search results. Plus, reviews give social clout to a book, inspiring others to check it out.
Tell your friends about them. The best recommendations come from our book-loving friends. Share what you’ve read and loved on your social media platforms. I used to do this all the time, but have fallen off that wagon. Hoping this newsletter makes up for it. :) I will do better moving forward.
Ask your local libraries to purchase copies for their collections.
This works. Talk to the head librarian. Enthuse. Come prepared with a list. Remind them of the diverse readership in your community looking for books with voices that represent them.
Subscribe to writer newsletters, including this one. :).
Recommendations to Get You Started
Books for Adults. In addition to the titles I mention elsewhere in this newsletter, here’s a short list to look for. This is my current to-read stack of Jewish-themed books by Jewish women authors, including Israeli writers. But it’s only a drop in the wonderful bucket of what’s out there. Post a comment to let me know what books you are reading — or writing. I love watching my list grow.
The Hebrew Teacher by Maya Arad
18: Jewish Stories Translated from 18 Languages edited by Nora Gold
Kantika: A Novel by Elizabeth Graver
The Wolf Hunt by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
Places We Left Behind: a Memoir-in-Miniature by Jennifer Friedman Lang
The Woman beyond the Sea by Sarit Yishai-Levi
Books for Children (and adults like me who love children’s books). These make great gifts, but are also fun to have around when the neighbor’s kids drop by. Plus, they will keep your own kinder engaged while you prep for the holiday. Send your recommendations my way by posting a comment.
How to Welcome an Alien by Rebecca Klempner. Timely for a chag that calls upon us to welcome people into our homes.
Kayla and Kugel’s Almost-Perfect Passover and Under-the-Sea-Seder, both by writer-illustrator Ann Koffsky (also check out Ann’s free Pesach coloring sheets)
Shoham’s Bangle by Sarah Sassoon. A friend just told me about this. It looks lovely.
A Taste for Noah by Susan Remick Topek. When our boys were small, this was our favorite book of the season.
The Adventures of K’tonTon by Sadie Rose Weilerstein. I adored this collection as a little girl. I still do, especially around Pesach for “The Story of K’tonton, a Mouse and a Bit of Leaven.” Look for a used copy (it’s no longer in print) or find it in the library.
Newsletters. I write one, so you know I’m a fan. Subscribing is a way of thanking writers for the content they share with you. It shows them your love and support. The newsletters listed below focus on Jewish content and have a free subscription level. Several have the option of a paid level as well, or the opportunity to buy the writer a cup of coffee. Some of these are new to me. Others I’ve been following for a while. I’d love to hear more about the newsletters you subscribe to.
Julie Zuckerman’s Monthly Author Newsletter is one of my favorites. Julie, the author of The Book of Jeremiah: a Novel in Stories, shares thoughts on books, her own author journey, and now, her personal experience of the current war.
For more meaningful dispatches from Israel, check out The Little Things, a War Diary by Vivian Cohen-Leisorek.
A Sense of Israel by writer-poet-mother Sheryl Abbey. This was just recommended to me.
On Being and Timelessness by Aviya Kushner. She’s a poet and columnist in the US, and I enjoy her conversations about books.
Ruth Franklin’s Ghost Stories offers insight into reading and writing and her book project about Anne Frank.
The Creative Pause with Sarah Ansbacher
Speaking of highlighting Jewish writers, Israeli author Sarah Ansbacher and I recently schmoozed about books, her passion for the Jews of Aden, and the importance of telling Jewish stories in a post-October 7th world.
Talk a little about your background as a writer.
I began my first novel at age 15, which Feldheim published when I was 18. I wrote three more novels before taking a hiatus to make aliyah and raise a family. My latest, Wave after Wave, came out soon after October 7 – a hard time to bring a book into the world.
When were you inspired to pick up your pen again?
In 2016, we visited my 98-year-old grandmother in England, the last time I would see her. We spent Shabbat with an Adeni family to help with my research on Ayuni, a novel I drafted ten years earlier about forbidden love between a Chassidish girl and an Adeni boy. I’d been busy with so many other things in the meantime, but I felt something was missing. Writing has always been a part of me, like water.
Take us on a quick detour into the lesser-known history of Adeni Jews.
About 5,000 Jews lived in Aden, where they flourished under the British Protectorate. That changed after the UN Resolution to create the State of Israel. The local Arab population rioted, burning Jewish homes and businesses. Nearly 90 Jews lost their lives. The majority of the Adeni community made aliyah after Israel’s founding. Most of the remaining Jews came to London in the late 50s and 60s before the end of the British Colony. The last 300 Jews were evacuated in 1967.
Back to that love story.
I dove into research once I returned to Israel from London. Four months later, I took a job at the Aden Jewish Heritage Museum in Tel Aviv. I began gathering the fascinating stories visitors shared with me. When Covid hit, I set the novel aside, and instead of watching Netflix or baking bread, I self-published Passage to Aden: Stories from a Little Museum in Tel Aviv. Ayuni launched six months later.
There’s serendipity in the way the two books connect with one another.
Yes! A woman came to the museum and told me she’d lived near the sea at the time. She remembers a ship of refugees circumventing the British blockade of Mandatory Palestine. Further research revealed another true story of Jewish refugees. I knew I had to write it. It became Wave after Wave.
Why is the novel so important right now?
It’s about a young woman who flees Austria after Kristallnacht in search of safe haven. The Jewish refugees who escaped then did so with little but the prayer that they’d be able to smuggle past the British. They were desperate, had nowhere else to go. So the book becomes a genuine reflection on why Israel is so important, then and now.
You began editing Wave after Wave just before October 7. Did the experience of that horrific day change how you looked at the novel?
I lost my mom suddenly while writing the book. I still worked on it in the early morning hours during shiva, but I got stuck for two weeks on the same paragraph. And yet, it gave me strange comfort since my mother knew about the project.
After October 7, I was again in mourning, or as my husband said, the whole country was sitting shiva. It deepened my empathy for my characters who are trying to survive in a world turned upside down. I also saw the parallels between Kristallnacht and October 7 – the sound of shattering glass, the blare of sirens. Plus the chaos, disruption, and fear. By coincidence, October 7 is the date of an event in the book. I gained greater clarity watching history repeat itself, which I mention in my Author’s Note.
How does your Shabbos observance inform your work?
If there wasn’t Shabbos, I would use the day to write. But there’s something powerful about stepping out of the digital universe. It’s when the most creative ideas come to me. Full sentences, even. If I’m afraid to lose the thought, I’ll put a bookmark in the dictionary on the page of a key word as a mnemonic.
As a Jewish writer, I also bring authenticity to my portrayal of our community. So important, now especially, when we are often misrepresented and misunderstood.
What thoughts would you like to end with?
I use a lot of first-person testimony and primary sources in my novels. It’s a way to honor those who experienced specific events in Jewish history. I believe we are strengthened by our stories, in telling and sharing them. They unite us in our empathy around them. So we must, as a country and a people, gather stories of the present moment as they unfold.
What Else?
Let me know!
Thanks so much for being here. It means the world to me. Please subscribe if you are reading this, but have not received the Days of Rest in your inbox.
Wishing you a peaceful, meaningful Pesach, however you are celebrating. May it bring us redemption from what pains us and the return of the hostages and a peek at a better world.
Love,
Merri
I grew up not far from where Sadie Rose Weilerstein lived (Atlantic City). I remember visiting her apartment. I adored those books as a young child. Thanks for keeping her memory alive.
This is so great and should be a yearly tradition for sure!