August 2024: Two new story collections, a cherry tomato paradise, and 300 days

Writing, reading, and recipes + an update from day 300(!!)

Dear friends,

It’s been an eventful week(!!) and month, and I hope you are hanging in there and reading good books, wherever you are. Today is day 300. Unthinkable. May August bring peace and quiet on every front, the return of our hostages, safety for our soldiers, and less suffering for all. Scroll down for your monthly dose of book reviews, a reading list for Women in Translation month, a literary event, a poem, a resource, a recipe, and an update from my corner of Israel.

Brief writing update: I started the month polishing a few of my (new) Jeremiah stories and now I’m relatively happy with them. In the last two weeks, I’ve returned to my novel-in-progress, reimagining some of the events and characters and working on new scenes. Onward!

Some nice news: One of my new Jeremiah stories was accepted for publication by History Through Fiction, which publishes “high quality fiction rooted in historical research.” Hooray! I’d love to place a few more of these stories before sending out the entire novel-in-stories to publishers.

More nice news: There is now a national coordinator for the dozens (hundreds?) of Hadassah book clubs, and I was invited to join one of their Zoom meetings a few weeks ago. I spoke about Literary Modiin, my own book, and a bit about the literary world, post Oct 7th. A few people on the call had read The Book of Jeremiah and recommended it warmly, so hopefully this will lead to additional book clubs selecting it for discussion. That’s a good segue to my annual reminder and fun map: I LOVE meeting with book clubs of any kind - Hadassah / sisterhood / synagogue / library / private groups.

Recommended Reading

I made good reading progress this month, and I’m up to 48 books so far this year, one behind schedule. Here are my top reading recommendations this month:

Things That Cause Inappropriate Happiness by Danila Botha: This excellent short story collection delves into the complexities of modern life, featuring a cast of young women, many of them artists, who grapple with their desires and the societal pressures that influence their choices. Old friends who wonder what could have been if they’d stayed together. A woman who writes long personal messages she hangs in her window during Covid. A woman who is a “cautionary tale” for her twin cousins. A couple on vacation trying to move on from a miscarriage and an affair. Each of the 32 stories turn in unexpected ways, weaving together humor and depth. Really well done. Register to hear Danila discuss Things That Cause Inappropriate Happiness at Literary Modiin this Sunday, August 4 at 20:00 Israel time / 1 pm Eastern.

Rakiya: Stories of Bulgaria by Ellis Shuman: As someone who knows nothing about Bulgaria, this masterful story collection was a terrific introduction to the country and its people. In fact, Bulgaria itself felt like a character in many of the stories. There are stories of Israelis in Bulgaria (the author lived there for two years and it’s become a popular vacation and business destination for Israelis), as well as tales of Bulgarians and other outsiders - those who have come to the country as tourists, students, refugees, or diplomats. A Syrian doctor now working in a pita bakery. Brothers on an adventure to find a killer bear. An old man seeking atonement for his actions and inactions during the Holocaust. Some of the tales are lighthearted - there are neighbors competing on who makes the best Rakiya (the national drink of Bulgaria) - and others that take on more serious subjects like poverty, guilt and forgiveness. I especially enjoyed the final story, where many of the characters in previous stories reappear. Together, the stories paint a compelling portrait of Bulgaria - its culture, traditions, language, and natural beauty - and it whets the appetite for a visit. Register to hear Ellis discuss Rakiya at Literary Modiin this Sunday, August 4 at 20:00 Israel time / 1 pm Eastern.

Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau: A friend recommended this as a feel-good story, something we could all use these days! This novel is a coming-of-age story set in 1970s Baltimore, where Mary Jane, a 14-year-old girl, is working as the “summer nanny” for a progressive family. As opposed to Mary Jane’s strict and prim church- and country club-going parents, everything goes in the Cone household, where the family is secretly hiding a famous rock star and his movie star wife. Dr. Cone, a psychiatrist - and, to the chagrin of Mary Jane’s parents, a Jew! - is treating the rock star for a drug addiction. Mary Jane adores her charge, a precocious 5-year-old named Izzy, and the Cones and their guests adore Mary Jane, who gets a front-row seat to a liberal world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, not to mention group therapy. A fun, light-hearted read.

The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson: A wacky, true story that I read in one day….I’d first heard about the “natural history heist of the century” on an episode of This American Life. In 2009, Edwin Rist, a 21-year-old American flautist broke into the Tring Museum (a British natural history museum, built by Baron de Rothschild for his son Walter) to steal 299 rare bird specimens. Rist was obsessed with the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying - there is an entire sub-culture around this - and began stripping some of the specimens to sell off their feathers. He was eventually caught, but not before destroying many of the specimens and/or removing their labels, thereby rendering them unusable for scientific research. The author heard about the heist two years later, and began a quest to find out what happened, why Rist got off relatively scot free, and why it’s important to care about scientific specimens collected over 150 years ago. Though nonfiction, this has all the elements of a classic thriller!

Women in Translation Month

Did you know that August is #WomeninTranslation month? For your convenience, I’ve made a list on Bookshop called “Read Israeli Women” with over 30 titles. (Granted, I’ve included plenty of Israeli women who, like me, write in English). Check all these books out! How many have you read?

Poem of the Month: Sestina: 9 Months

Sestina: 9 Months by Rachael Sevitt (Paper Brigade Daily/JBC): “Even when I’m hap­py, there’s a cor­ner of my mind where it’s always raining.” This powerful poem nails it. Everything we are feeling.

Events

I’m excited for our August Literary Modiin event, coming up in a few days! This Sunday, August 4th, at 20:00 Israel time / 1 pm Eastern…Please join me to hear from Ellis Shuman (RAKIYA), Maxim D. Shrayer (KINSHIP), and Danila Botha (THINGS THAT CAUSE INAPPROPRIATE HAPPINESS). Register here.

Missed any of our Literary Modiin events? Catch the recordings here.

Resource of the Month: read.write.eat.

read.write.eat: I came across one of Natalie Serber’s posts on Substack and I was struck by how many things we had in common. Similar taste in books, a love of prompts, the outdoors, and recipes of salad-y things. So if you like this newsletter, check hers out.

Recipe of the Month: My Shabbat Salad

Welcome to the near end of the newsletter, where you’re rewarded with a yummy recipe. When I’m invited out for a meal on Shabbat and ask what I can make, usually the answer is: “how about a salad?” I usually bring some variation of this:

1 sweet potato, thinly sliced - roasted at 200 C / 390 F with a bit of olive oil and kosher salt until crispy. (Try not to eat all the slices before making the salad, or use two, one for snacking, one for the salad!)

1 head of Romaine lettuce, torn into small pieces

Handfuls of cherry tomatoes in a variety of colors, halved or quartered

1 red pepper, diced

1 avocado, diced

random other vegetables I might have around (ie cabbage, kohlrabi) - thinly sliced

a mixture of crushed nuts (usually almonds, pecans, or cashews - lately I’ve been using the roasted salted kind)

Dressing: the juice of 1-2 lemons, olive oil, salt & pepper to taste

Assemble and then dress before serving! Enjoy.

Israel Update & Resources

I don’t need to rehash the news for you, but to say that the pervasive feeling here is beyond depressing is a vast understatement. When will it end? Today marks 300 days that our hostages have been in gehenom (hell). Perhaps the headline I found most depressing was this one from a few days ago: After complex rescue ops in Gaza, IDF assesses some hostages may never be found (The Times of Israel), which means that this nightmare will never end.

When we say havdalah each Saturday night to end Shabbat, we wish each other a “shavua tov” - a good week. Yet for those of us who have been away from devices for the previous 25 hours (which I highly recommend), we brace ourselves for bad news. Indeed, when I turned on my phone last Saturday night I saw the terrible, devastating news that 12 children in Majdal Shams (a Druze town in the Golan Heights) had been killed by a Hezbollah rocket. The way it is reported in the mainstream media is enough to make one feel insane. The Washington Post took the cake this week, though a friend of mine also referred to the NYT obituary of Ismail Haniyeh as “a love letter” which was pretty on target.

WTF WaPo??

That same night, I attended our local rally to support the hostage families, and we heard from former hostages Clara Malman and Luis Dar as well as from Maccabit, the aunt of Gali and Ziv Berman, 26-year-old identical twins from Kibbutz Kfar Aza. They are friends of my daughter, and whenever she’s had a free moment from her intense engineering studies, she goes to Hostage Square in Tel Aviv to show her support or volunteer. She spent Saturday morning hanging Gali and Ziv posters and banners around Modiin. When we spoke to Maccabit before the rally, she said she can’t wait for her nephews to come home so we can burn all the posters and t-shirts in a huge bonfire. Halavai. Before she spoke to the crowd, we watched a video montage of Gali and Ziv, which I’ve seen before but still had me wiping away tears to see them so alive and vibrant. Halavai they will be rescued or released as soon as possible, together with Hersh and all the other hostages.

On the personal front, my daughter started her reserve duty on Monday and today went up north. She’s one of three (!) young women (among a few hundred guys) who are guarding roads. “We’re not fighting, we’re just the first line of defense,” is how she put it. I’m glad she had a week in between her last exam and her reserve duty to unwind a bit, see friends, go to the beach, and volunteer. A bunch of years ago, when my oldest started traveling around the country to visit gap-year programs, the same year there were many lone wolf stabbings and car rammings I had to tell myself to just assume everything was fine unless I heard otherwise. So I’m telling myself the same thing now.

So…yes, there are many moments, many times during the day, that it is hard not to fall into despair, and as I’ve said before, it takes a concentrated effort not to. In the last month I’ve volunteered twice picking cherry tomatoes (including in Ein Habesor, in the Gaza envelope, which I’ve dubbed cherry tomato paradise), picking grapes at the Latrun monastery, and preparing scallions for packaging with a colleague visiting from the States. That’s what I’ll continue to do - volunteer, exercise, go to the beach, read, write, listen to music, and support the hostage and miluim families however I can. For the Hebrew speakers, here’s a podcast about the Road to Recovery organization, which also brought me to grateful tears that this organization (where I am an occasional volunteer) exists.

As I write, things are happening at breakneck speed. Seven airlines cancelling flights to Israel. A friend who is stuck in Warsaw with his daughter for the weekend (at least!). Will my husband, returning next week, be able to fly? Who knows? As my friend Vivian wrote the other day, we are a nation with ADHD, no idea where place our focus: Gaza? the north? the mob that broke into an army base? antisemitism abroad? And what about a hostage deal??

I’ll end with things that are making me happy, in no apparent order: Logging into FB and seeing pictures of my friend’s daughter (from Jerusalem) who seems to be having a terrific time in the Tikvah program at Camp Ramah in California…Seeing pics of my own happy kid (and niece and nephews) at Camp Ramah in New England…Spending an hour with my older son and his (relatively new) girlfriend and seeing how sweet they are with each other…Listening to my happy Israeli music playlist nonstop (at work / on runs / in the car)…Eating our amazing Israeli produce, including picking and eating figs straight from the tree on my bike rides, the mangoes from my own tree, which are extra delicious, the cherry tomatoes…Meetups with friends, including hosting ~10 Jewish women writers at my home and the next night an outing with my neighborhood friends to a fun wine tasting place in Tel Aviv…Going for swims at my local pool and then spending time reading my book…Watching a bit of the Olympics, thanks to a giant screen set up in my office, so we can watch during lunch. Go Team Israel! And Team USA!

That’s it for now. I hope you have things that are making you happy too. Halavai (may it come to pass) that our hostages will be home soon, that our soldiers will stay safe, and that there will be less suffering all around. I’ll leave you with a some pictures from the last few weeks.

Top row: Cherry tomato paradise in Ein Habesor. Middle row: Picking grapes in Latrun (I don't only drink wine, I help make it!) Bottom row: Sat night hostage rally in Modiin; the saddest train station wall ever (Hashalom Train Station, in Tel Aviv, plastered with memorial stickers), my favorite stretch of shade in Modiin.

Until next time, b’sorot tovot. Am Yisrael Chai.

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A small way to support my work: Since June 2019, I’ve hosted the monthly Literary Modiin author series, and since April 2020, I’ve been putting out this monthly newsletter. Both represent a significant amount of effort for me, but I love talking about books and promoting other authors, and I’m committed to keeping both of these things FREE for all. I do incur some expenses to keep these up, however, so if you have enjoyed the Literary Modiin events and/or if you enjoy the newsletter or both, and you’d like to support my work in some small, tangible way, I’d be grateful if you’d click on the “Buy Me a Coffee” link below. (If you can’t, that’s fine too)! I appreciate your continued support for these events, book recommendations and my literary musings.

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Julie Zuckerman's debut novel-in-stories, The Book of Jeremiah, was published in May 2019 by Press 53. Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in CRAFT, Tikkun, Jewish Women’s Archives, Crab Orchard Review, The Coil, The SFWP Quarterly, Ellipsis, MoonPark Review, Sixfold, and The MacGuffin, among others. She is the founder and host of Literary Modiin, a monthly author series celebrating fiction, memoir and poetry with Jewish content. A native of Connecticut, she lives in Israel with her husband and four children. www.juliezuckerman.com