November Mid-Month Report: Back to reality
An update from day 408 and some literary things
For new subscribers: On the first of each month, I put out a newsletter with book recommendations, literary events and resources and more. Here’s the Nov 4 newsletter if you missed it (I was a few days late). Since October 7, 2023, I’ve also been putting out mid-month updates with reflections from life in Israel, as well as some literary things. (Scroll down for the literary things).
Dear friends,
It is a bit more than halfway through the month, the war grinds on, and though much has happened since I last wrote (Bibi firing Gallant! The US elections! Amsterdam!), I’ll keep this brief and refer you, mostly, to some uplifting or powerful things I’ve read. That, plus pomegranate pictures, and a few literary announcements.
Back
Given my amazing trip to the US, I was a bit worried as to how I’d feel at coming back to reality. But it’s been fine. I’m glad to be home. Glad to be back in my neighborhood and garden minyan and shul. Back on my regular bike and running routes, back at my office, back to volunteering, and - hooray! - back to my regular writing spot most mornings before heading into work. And last Shabbat, for the first time since May, I had all four kids home, which probably won’t happen again for a while.
Last week, I was also back at our local hostage gathering on Saturday night. We had a particularly large crowd; one of the speakers was local Modiin resident Avi Marciano, father of Noa Marciano z”l. Noa was one of the תצפתניות (field observers) who was kidnapped from the Nahal Oz base and later murdered in Hamas captivity. He related how Noa had sat with him the week before October 7th and told him that there would be a war after the holiday. He spoke of their last communications and of hearing the bitter news - a year ago this week - that she had been murdered. Hamas had published a video of her in captivity - alive - and then cut to her lifeless body. The week prior, Noa’s younger sister drafted into the IDF, despite the fact that there has not been a state inquiry. We wiped at our tears and collectively tried to embrace the family, whose pain must be unbearable. I do not know the family personally, but a glimpse at his Facebook feed, even with the automatic translation, may give you some idea.
Also last week, I returned to my post Oct 7 therapy, aka volunteering in the agricultural sector. On Friday, I helped with an olive harvest, where the work was much more physical than anything else I’ve done. Motti, the farmer, used to have 12 workers from Gaza — all very good people, he said, who’d been with his family for decades. Motti only recently received approval to hire two foreign workers; for most of the last year, it’s been him and his 80-year-old father trying to save their olives and citrus. (Also, Motti has a full time job; like many others, he is working on his parents’ farm in his spare time). Earlier in the week, I worked from home so that I could pick pomegranates early in the morning. There were also very few volunteers and hundreds of pomegranates rotting on the ground or on the trees. I took a few home and they are most delicious.
I’ve been pushing the powers that be at my day job that we need to go out and volunteer together, and I think this may be the week that it happens.
***
I promised uplifting, so here is an excellent article - perhaps the most hopeful and evenhanded piece I have read in a long time - by Samer Sinijlawi in The Atlantic My Hope for Palestine. Here he is talking about with Israeli and Palestinian students at Hebrew University, where he is pursuing a degree in conflict resolution:
These young people, who know how to work so well together, who know how to give and take, already know how to be neighbors. They just need leadership that will reinforce the possibility.
And here is an interesting, hopeful exchange related by Tanya Mozias, a fellow writer from Modiin, a linguist whose Substack is about “learning languages in a divided world.” Check out her recent post, From gloom in Amsterdam to hope in Beirut, and subscribe to follow her attempt to learn 12 languages in 12 months.
Literary Matters
More on what’s happening in the Jewish literary world
I know there are bigger things going on right now, but the number one topic I’m (still) stewing about, the thing that keeps me up at night, is the wrongheaded, damaging, idiotic (and downright antisemitic) call to boycott Israeli cultural institutions. I shared the Stop the Boycott of Israeli Culture op-ed written by Deborah Harris and Jessica Kasmer-Jacobs in the NYT last time, but it bears repeating:
This attack on culture divides the very people who should be in direct dialogue, reading one another’s books. It cannot be that the solution to the conflict is to read less, not more. For authors who would in any other case denounce book bans and library purges, what do they hope to accomplish with this?
Among the people who signed the boycott petition are authors whose books I’ve previously recommended in this newsletter, as well as two authors who have even appeared at Literary Modiin, which I would certainly deem an Israeli cultural institution. So yes, it feels personal. I have some choice words for those who signed, but for the sake of this newsletter I will say: For shame!
As Adam Kirsch wrote in the Wall Street Journal, A Writers’ Boycott of Israel Betrays the Values of Literature
The writers who lent their reputations to this cause are sending a clear message: If you support the existence of a Jewish state—in any borders, under any government—you deserve to be treated as a moral pariah….The literary boycott of Israel won’t change the way Israel fights in Gaza, or convince Israelis to dissolve their country, but it will encourage literary people and institutions to ostracize American Jews who refuse to deny a central part of their identity….Instead, the boycotters have fallen victim to our era’s mania for ideological purity—the profoundly unliterary idea that disagreement is a reason to reject dialogue, rather than the best reason to begin it.
In a recent post on Read Her Like an Open Book, Corie Adjmi writes about what it feels like to be a Jewish reader and writer now. She describes visiting a bookstore on the Upper East Side (!!) to ask if they carry On Being Jewish Now, a new anthology of 75 essays by Jewish writers edited by Zibby Owens, with proceeds going to Artists Against Antisemitism. (The second annual Artists Against Antisemitism auction is now open through Nov 20 check it out!)
What if Jewish voices got boxed out altogether? What if our stories didn’t get told? If Sally Rooney got her way, pro-Israel authors, artists, literary agents, and publishers, and those who support them, would be off-limits. Everything feels hostile.
Yes indeed, everything feels hostile. But then she reminds us:
And regardless of what goes down in the literary world, Jewish writers and artists will find a way. We will not be silenced.
(I am keeping this in mind as I begin my search for a literary agent. Whether this will be a fool’s errand remains to be seen, but - like many writers - I’m well-practiced at the art of perseverance. Can one be tenaciously optimistic? If so, that’s what I’m striving for).
I continue to be so grateful to all of the new publications and organizations that support and champion Jewish writers. Places like Judith Magazine, Writing on the Wall, the Jewish Book Council and others.
Jewish Book Month starts next week on November 24. Celebrate by buying Jewish books, inviting authors to your local events, reviewing their books, amplifying your recommendations on social media, and more! Check out the JBC’s excellent list of how you can celebrate Jewish Book Month.
What I’m Reading
I recently finished Jessica Elisheva Emerson’s Olive Days (catch the recording of Jessica at Literary Modiin’s November event) and Catherine Newman’s We All Want Impossible Things - loved them both. Yesterday, I started Miriam Karpilove’s Diary of a Lonely Girl, translated from Yiddish by Jessica Kirzane. (I was delighted to open the book to find that the author lived in Bridgeport for part of her life). As for audiobooks, I’m almost finished listening to Qian Julie Wang’s Beautiful Country - also excellent. Look for my reviews in the upcoming Dec. 1 newsletter.
Events
Today is the first day of the 2024 Jewish Writers’ Conference, sponsored by the Jewish Book Council. The conference is virtual, and will take place from 10 am - 6 pm Eastern time. I’m looking forward to attending several of the sessions. The registration link, still seems open, so perhaps it’s not too late to register.
Nov 18, 19 & 20 at 19:00 Israel time / 12 pm Eastern: There are several sessions that are part of the JBC conference that are free and open to the public. I’ll be speaking on Nov. 20 at the panel entitled “Why is This War Different from All Other Wars: Writing About Israel After October 7th,” together with Deborah Harris, Galina Vromen, and Miryan Sivan. Register for one or all three here.
Save the dates for upcoming Literary Modiin events - Sunday December 15, Sunday January 19 (already open for registration), and Sunday February 16! Missed any of our Literary Modiin events? Catch the recordings here.
More nice news: The New Orleans Readers’ Circle has selected The Book of Jeremiah for their December pick. I’ll be joining from Zoom and I believe it will also be open to the public. I’ll send a link when I have it.
ICYMI
In case you missed it: my story The Hope was published by Judith Magazine last month!
Until next time, b’sorot tovot. May our hostages return home, our soldiers stay safe, and may we see peace soon. Am Yisrael Chai.
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.
Request: If you’ve read (and liked) The Book of Jeremiah, please help me out by writing a brief review on Amazon or wherever you purchase books online. It can be as simple as one or two lines. Thank you!
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
As a writer and scholar of speculative fiction (SF), I am very concerned about the impact of boycotts and deplatforming on Jewish and Israeli SF. Always a rather esoteric field, Jewish/Israeli SF finally started gaining the recognition it deserved. But in the wake of October 7 and the rising wave of antisemitism, this momentum has been stalled, if not reversed. All Jewish/Israeli writers face common challenges, but SF writers are particularly vulnerable.