Why Jewish historical fiction may not be enough
I’m not good at posting anything political on social media. As a writer striving for a wide readership, I decided while ago that I should take a more-or-less neutral stance, even on issues I care deeply about.
That changed on October 7, 2023, when my heart shattered and I felt I had to say something about the whole-sale monstrosity that Hamas visited upon my people.
Some little-known facts about me: I have dual citizenship, both US and Israeli. I served as an officer in the IDF. I have a large family and many friends living in Israel.
One well-known fact about me: I write Jewish historical fiction about little-known epochs of Jewish history – the Babylonian exile, the rise of antisemitism in medieval Europe, and the short-lived happy moments when Napoleon demolished the ghetto gates of Italy and (perhaps) offered the Jews of Israel a proto-Zionist homeland in Jerusalem. (Napoleon’s defeat in Acre put an end to that dream.) I always felt these novels, meant to educate Jews and non-Jews alike about the breadth of Jewish experience, constituted my form of resistance to this new rise of antisemitism.
Horrified as I was by the sheer idiocy of the campus protests, seeing how ill informed and, frankly, brainwashed, those young people were, I said not a word, telling myself that those kids would not hear me. They don’t seem to hear anyone. The fact that they literally refuse to engage in discussion tells you everything you need to know about the nature of their protests.
I did speak out on the troubles Jewish authors were having – and still are having – on my Substack and blog. You can read those posts here: Personally Attacked and Jewish Writers Need Your Help.
But the deep pain I experienced upon the return of the Bibas boys in coffins – whom I had kept in my heart for more than 500 days – and the resulting silence from the non-Jewish world made me post the following:
And I was sadly gratified by the posts of support received – some 181 reactions, and 67 comments on Facebook, 72 “likes” and 6 comments on Instagram to date. The majority of course were Jewish but many were not. Perhaps I’m especially lucky in the non-Jewish friends I have. I’m grateful to all of them.
But what astonished me was that, as I returned to Facebook several times that day, I saw my self-created graphic served up multiple times on other people’s pages. (Since we’re talking statistics, it was shared 28 times to date.)
I know I’m no influencer. These numbers are a drop in the bucket when compared to the thousands and multiples of thousands those who are influencers receive when they post. But they’re a lot for me.
When I avoided public comment on social media, I always told myself my form of resistance to the new antisemitism was through my novels. Telling these stories to those who say “I didn’t know that before” was my way of contributing to our fight for recognition that we are a people with a history as long as time. Writing BABYLON told of our longing for our homeland, which has always and forever been Israel. Writing THE FRUIT OF HER HANDS showed how the destructive medieval myths of our people originated and became a twisted and false truth in the minds of the then Catholic majority. Myths that have persisted throughout the ages, myths that are still considered truth today, no matter how many times they are disproven. Writing both of my Napoleonic novels was a way to show that there were some happy times in Jewish history, however short-lived.
I still believe my novels will have a life long after we’ve moved past the current tragedy of the day. Any comments made on social media are, of course, transitory at best. As the current US administration is all too aware, battering the public with a succession of scandals means we can’t focus clearly on any of them. And Israelis and Jews alike are reeling, in the midst of their mourning, with the discovery that the body of the woman sent back to Israel is not that of the mother of the Bibas children – and then the news that several bombs were placed on buses, set to go off this morning at 9 AM Israel time, and only discovered because the timers were mistakenly set for 9 PM.
But did my post draw the attention of and encourage my non-Jewish friends to speak out, however briefly? It seems it did. Did they help me, in the midst of my mourning along with the rest of Israel, feel just a little less aIone? Absolutely.
And I’m grateful for this – if shattered that it took a tragedy of this magnitude to make it happen.
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