In this special episode (a live event at the Streicker Center attended by more than 350 people!), Zibby joins authors Annabelle Gurwitch, Nicola Kraus, Lihi Lapid, and Talia Carner to discuss ON BEING JEWISH NOW, the inspiring collection of personal essays reflecting on Jewish identity in the aftermath of October 7th that they all contributed to. From motherhood and immigration to antisemitism and rediscovering Jewish heritage and resilience, each contributor shares stories from their essays and lives, making for a heartfelt, emotional, and thought-provoking panel.

Transcript:

Zibby: Everybody, I'm thrilled to welcome some of our esteemed panelists today. First up we have Leahy Lapid,

Annabelle Gurwitch,

Talia Karner,

Nicola Kraus! Okay. In addition to everybody on stage, I know Marjorie mentioned, but we have so many other people. So many of our 75 contributors who came in, flew in, and are here and will be joining us for lunch, but I would like you to really quickly stand up and say your name and face that way really, really, really fast.

So starting here with Courtney, just any contributors to the book, say your name, we'll go down the line really fast. Okay. Courtney, say your name. Take five. Courtney Scheinmel. Allison Hammer. Allie Rosen, Alex Strauss, Harper Kincaid, Stacey Eagle, Annalisa Lact, and this is so Zibby, she always says this to us, just so you know.

Cori Ajme, Rebecca Karen Jablonski, Samantha Green Woodruff, Beth Ricanotti, David K Israel, 

Rachel Levy Lesser, Amy Blumenfeld, Rebecca Raphael. Eleanor Risa.

So this is just a sample of the 75 contributors to On Being Jewish Now who, when I asked in late June, would anybody want to write a quick essay about what it means and how it feels to be Jewish now, especially since October 7th, all of these people said yes. They not only said yes, they continue to show up, do everything for this book, which, which The prophets of which are being donated to artists against antisemitism.

They are, they are friends. They are amazing. So thank you to all of them, honestly.

Okay, so for the panelists, could you say the name of your essay and why, and a little bit about your background and then we'll get into the meat of it. 

Lihi Lapid: Hi, uh, my name is Lihi Lapid and I come from Israel for this event, so I'm like, ready? Yeah. Um. And I wrote about, it's very nice because it's with the line of the book, on being an Israeli mom and about this thing.

I'm writing for many years about motherhood and about family and about relationship in the family and, and, To be an Israeli mom, especially now, it's a, it's a unique burden. 

Annabel Gurwitch: I'm Annabel Gurwitch, and my essay, Shalom Y'all, reflects on the immigrant experience of my family, uh, coming from Russia to the American South.

And I felt that this was an important opportunity to, to counter the anti immigrant, the ugly language and, and, and rhetoric that has been spreading and reflect on welcoming the stranger, as I say in my essay, because we were once strangers in Bayou Labatry.

Nicola Kraus: Uh, I'm Nicola Kraus, and my essay is called My Perimenopausal Bat Mitzvah. Um, although it's in June, and by then it might be just be my menopausal bat mitzvah. Uh, it's about my experience taking, uh, Hebrew 1 last year. This year, I am doing the preparation with the prayers and the memorization, and I totally thought that I'd have a Walkman and I'd be bopping around, and it is not that at all.

And, uh, it's very edifying, and I'm sure it's very, very good for my brain. I'm probably preventing dementia in real time. 

Talia Karner: I'm Talia Karner. You can hear from my accent, I'm formerly from Israel, but I've lived here for decades and I'm a novelist. I never experienced antisemitism. Personally, until the early this year when just before my novel, the latest now, the latest novel came out.

And for the first time in my life, I bought myself a Jewish star. Never had the need. to flaunt this, and that's what my essay is about.

Zibby: I'm sure you've all read their bios in preparation for today, which maybe is why you're here, because they're so incredibly accomplished. But a quick shout out, I went to see Annabelle Gurwitch's play last night, called Room 1214. Um, so she is starring in a play at 59 East 59th Street. So if you get a moment in the next couple weeks, go see it.

It's really powerful. Anyway, but they're all amazing, I mean, in so many ways. I just wanted to start by reading Lihi's To Be an Israeli Mom, just to put us in the mood. There's a huge range of essays in this book. Some are really funny, as you can tell from the panelists already. Some are funny, all are hopeful in their way.

Some are sad, some are more expository in nature, whereas some are about food and emotion and family and love and all the things that we all talk about all the time. But I did want to start with this because I I think I cried the most when reading this essay as I edited and re edited and, oh my gosh. So I just, in case you haven't read this one yet, I will read it.

To be an Israeli mom is to see how your fetus, already, when the doctor says it's a boy, grows to be a soldier in uniform, with road dust in his hair, a rifle on his shoulder, and his eyes full of innocence. And to start being worried. To be an Israeli mom is to teach your daughter not to show weakness in front of her third grade classmates because she will have to be strong in front of her tough commander at age 18.

To be an Israeli mom is to complain about your country quite a bit, but always tell your children it's the best place in the world. To be an Israeli mom is to be scared when the sirens go off, but to remember it's more important that your children don't stress out and aren't afraid. So you take a deep breath and tend to them first, like you are super cool.

To be an Israeli mom is to be involved, to consume the news like a drug addict, to protest for or against, and always feel responsible for what's going on here because it's yours. It's your state and it's your children that will protect it. And to know that you don't have the option to be indifferent, not in this country.

And sometimes to agonize that you didn't protest more. To be an Israeli mom is to know about the situation, know less than the chief of staff. And if you meet him, let him know what you think should be done. To be an Israeli mom who lives by the border, near Gaza in the south, or near Lebanon in the north, is to be part of a chain of wonderful, brave Israeli women for whom guarding their homes It means guarding their country and to hope this time will be the last.

To be an Israeli mom is to see uniforms hanging on the laundry rope and to know that the mother or father who will fold them might shed a small tear and say a prayer that comes from deep within their heart. To be an Israeli mom is to look at photos of our killed soldiers and try not to think about how much they look like your own son and to think about it anyway.

To be an Israeli mom these days. It's to see a bereaved mother and feel her sharp pain in your chest to run out of air. It's to know that that bereaved mother is not someone else. She is a mom exactly like you, and that it could have been you, to feel you are soul sisters and hurt with her, to want to hold and hug her, but at the same time know you will never be able to actually ease her pain, and that there are no words.

To be an Israeli grandma is not to believe that both your grandson and your granddaughter are being drafted to the army. After all, it's not true. You were the one who told their grandpa when he went to war that by the time you had grandchildren, this would end. And to wonder whether it will ever end. To be an Israeli mom is to know that all you want to give your children is security.

And to realize that this is the one thing you cannot actually promise them. And still know for a fact that Israel is the best place for your child. I know this cannot really be explained to anyone who is not an Israeli. To be an Israeli mom is to want peace. But not be willing to give up safety or security.

It's to get through the current months in Israel and to know that an Israeli mom deserves to grow her children quietly. It's also to know that one day peace and safety will come because peace is the promise of the Israeli mother and Even if it looks so far away now trust her it will come because being an Israeli mom is to be someone that never ever gives up

I mean I had to do this 75 times. They were all so good. Oh my gosh Lee tell us about this essay tell us about how it feels to be let's just talk about it. 

Lihi Lapid: I want to say something. I came here with my sister, and all night we were talking, I hope she won't be angry with me now, with her daughter that she's, she drafted a week ago, and she cried and all night.

She didn't mind that the time difference is there, and she was crying, saying how difficult it is for her to be drafted and to be there and to be all alone and far from. For me, there is something at these days that, uh, you know, we are Israeli Sabras. We are not always thankful for. for other Jews helping us, and I think this year changed us totally.

We are so full of gratitude to anyone that cares, to anyone that posts something about being Jewish, about, about the, the bond between Israelis and, and Jews in America. And it's the first time We also see how difficult it is for you. So, so I think it's something that I can't remember that bonds so much here and there because it's unexplainable for all of us.

How come at the most agony time at the, when, when our heart is bleeding and when our country is bleeding, hate is rising up and, and, and the fact that we are. here and we are together. It's such an important thing. And that's why it was so important for me to have the Israeli moms thing in this book. And thank you, Zibby, for.

Zibby: And Talia, speak a little about from, the Israeli New Yorker perspective. How does it feel hearing this? How has your own experience been? And do you feel more united than ever? 

Talia Karner: As an Israeli who had left many years ago, there is always a sense of guilt. Of course, my guilt now, as I listened to Leahy is I look at my 21 year old grandson, who is in college at the university.

And I have mixed feelings. I did this because of me. He's not fighting in Israel. He should be there. But of course, do I want him now fighting in Gaza or in the Galilee? I have that constant fight within myself, even though obviously what happens to my grandson's career and life and studies have been taken out of my hands.

When I left with my, at that time, my, my, my first daughter. Um, so that's That's always there. The pain, the mourning, the shock have not worn off in these 13 months. And actually, I don't know if some of you can see, three weeks ago I fell and broke my face. I have 35 stitches. The minute I hit the ground and all of this blood was all over the place, My first thought, these female hostages, have it worse.

And as I was taken to the hospital, I could not stop thinking, this is nothing. And 35 stitches on my face. I'll have a scar, and I will always think of the female hostages. 

Zibby: Just a nice late morning here in New York City. I'm sorry, I'm not funny. No, no, no. I mean, this is it, pain and humor, right? We have to have them both.

Nicola, you're an American, very different experience. What has your experience been like, especially since the attacks? And how do you use humor to get through the day? 

Nicola Kraus: So my journey to having this perimenopausal bat mitzvah was that I grew up in a household with three siloed narratives. One was that I always saw pictures of my parents wedding at St. James around the corner. I knew I'd been christened there. I was sent to Park Avenue Christian and then Chapin. And the Our house always looked like Santa threw up all over it. So that was one narrative. And then I also knew that my parents were first gen. My father grew up in England, my mother here, and that they'd grown up incredibly poor, but that my grandparents at some point in time had not been and that they had to flee.

So fleeing was a large part of my childhood narrative. At some point, someone will come and you will lose everything and you will flee. And there was never any mention of my great grandparents, as if my parents had just sprogged into life as full grown adults. And then the third narrative was the Holocaust, which is my father's deepest obsession.

Ask him, like, just pick a random day. And he'll be able to tell you where everyone was at that moment. But there was never any connection to that having anything to do with us personally. And I know it sounds insane, but that's how it was. And it lasted until I was in the eighth grade when I signed up for a semester long elective on the Holocaust.

And as I started to understand who fled in 1938, I waited for my mother to come home from school one day, from work, and I said, Are we Jewish? And she said, Krauss is like Strauss. It can go either way. And, uh, I was like, huh, I think my mom just lied to me. So. What I could take control of at that point was to start farming myself out at the high holidays.

So my sister and I became holiday orphans. We'd sort of sidle up to people at pick up and go, Hey, you got an extra seat at Passover? I don't eat very much. I won't take up much space. And so that was the way that we started to introduce ourselves to the rituals and traditions, but my parents They didn't protest, but they didn't participate, and they didn't encourage.

And I sort of noodled along like that until five years ago, I attended the bat mitzvah of a friend of my daughter at a temple on 17th Street, and I just came into that space, and I felt like I was home. I just, I loved everything about it, I loved the community, I loved the rabbi, and over the pandemic they offered Intro to Judaism 1 over Zoom, and I was, I loved it, I loved the class, uh, we followed the calendar, and so each week we did a different aspect through the holidays.

And then a year ago my friend said, hey, for the very first time they're offering Hebrew for grown ups. I was like, yes! And it is, it is not without its challenges. It is wringing my little brain dry. But getting to be there every week and in a community of people who interestingly, most of them are on the board.

So I am definitely the weakest link. Everyone else has tremendously more exposure and history with all of these prayers and traditions. But I am determined to try to catch up. And I just feel a sense of connection to. My ancestors. And I don't think my parents intentionally wanted to sever that. I think it was just post traumatic stress disorder, and people just.

in my family didn't know how to talk about what had happened. Um, my great grandparents were all murdered in the camps, and their children just fled and moved forward. And I think the process of, of reclamation, at least for me, is incredibly important. So I was really honored to ask to participate in this collection and to be here today. So thank you.

Zibby: Wait, when did you find out the history of what actually happened? Did you have to dig yourself? Did they eventually tell you what happened? 

Nicola Kraus: Oh no. Little by little. Actually, the biggest shift came after my mother died and my father signed up for the Sulpersteins, which are the stumbling stone memorial.

And we, we were on an 18 month waiting list. But eventually, we all gathered back in Carlsbad, um, outside of Prague, and it was us and five other families. And we were able to bring my daughter, they had the Israeli ambassador to the Czech Republic who came to speak, and we were able to go to the synagogue that had survived, where my great grandmother had been a member and had attended services every day.

And that, I think, the process of my father having to tell people that he was taking us to do this was sort of a coming out for him. And when we got to this tiny town and we looked around and we looked at my dad, we're like, Dad, you're a little Czech old man. You're a little Jewish Czech old man. That's who you are.

And so he actually, oh this is a public service announcement, he just got back from Vienna yesterday and he was at the Jewish cemetery in Vienna and he said it is extraordinary, it is vast, no one was there, and he said this needs to be on every Jewish travel itinerary. He said it was extraordinary and incredibly powerful, so if you're planning a trip to that part of Europe at any point in the next couple of years, he said it's really a must see.

He and my sister have been gathering all the paperwork, so they now have all the death certificates, and they've been expanding it to branches of our family that we didn't even know existed, including a woman who was sort of one of the first beauty mavens in Vienna. In the 1800s, she developed a, a beauty balm, and had a, her own department store off of the success of this, and their, their last name was Rix, and we've only just learned of their existence.

So my father's now applying, uh, because she's buried in that cemetery to have a plaque, uh, because he said there are a couple of men who have plaques, but there are almost no women, notable women in the Jewish cemetery who have plaques. So he's trying to get one for her. So it's been nice. So like, the, the, the joy has spread, um, and we're all participating in this now.

Zibby: Wow, gosh. What about you, Annabelle? Tell us about your family. 

Annabel Gurwitch: Well, first of all, this is where my mind goes. I'm holding this grief, and I also want to know what the beauty balm was. Who thought that? As well, I bet it was really good, right? 

Nicola Kraus: It was probably like, I don't know, kitchen grease and she put it in a nice package.

Annabel Gurwitch: I bet it worked. I bet it worked. That's, that's this crazy way we live and metabolize. grief and humor. So I really took the word now as part of a call to action to write. So the story that I write about is inspired by my ancestors who, you know, I, are the American Jewish South is, is a lesser known past.

of the Jewish pogrom coming to, and coming to America and settling there where we really were strangers in a strange land. But in particular, that's a launching off point for the real message of the story is about what's going on. What is our call to action as Jews? How do we live in the world? And how my background has inspired me and really the audience for my story isn't so much in this room, but to reach the greater world about what an ethical Jewish life looks like for me.

So it just as a coincidence, three weeks before October 7th, I. flew to Tel Aviv to meet up with partners on a project I had been recruited into by my friend Jessica Hecht, who was inspired to start a project called the Campfire Project. I write about this in our book, which works with young people bringing arts into refugee spaces.

Jessica, at the time she thought of this, was starring on Broadway. in Fiddler on the Roof. And she was thinking about Ritsona, which was happening at the time, and other kinds of pogroms, and what it meant to be a Jewish woman alive now. And when she said to me, we're, you know, about the project. And she said, do you want to be part of this?

Because also she had an uncle who took place in creating theater at a, at a camp, at a refugee camp after living through the Holocaust in Poland. And she said, do you want do this with me? I said, yes, not realizing she meant at the Pallarinia Resettlement Camp in Northern Uganda. So this is how I found myself on my way to first meet with our partners, Israel Aid in Tel Aviv.

And I had the most extraordinary experience working. It seemed profoundly Jewish and it seemed like, It was important to tell the world about what it could mean to be Jewish and to be welcoming the stranger in this way and, and as a call to action to take our experience out into the world. We spent 10 days in Pallarinia working, uh, with creating theater, I should say working, it was a joy, with, uh, young people who had walked.

from South Sudan, unaccompanied. And in these young people, teenagers faces and in their life, I saw Jewish experience and it was so profound. And I just thought, you know, and, and Israel has a, has a commitment to the, uh, Palawin, your, uh, resettlement camp. I felt really Jewish that year. This is two years ago now.

We did Tashlik on a little tributary of the Nile, and I just had never felt more Jewish than in being in northern Uganda on this mission. We continued this project working with the Worker's Circle in New York this year. We work with young people from Venezuela and Ecuador who cross the Darien Path. And for me, it's really important that People in the world understand that being Jewish can be a call to action in the world to, to better the world and that Jewish ethics go beyond the Jewish community, that the idea of tikkun olam can mean Um, can mean the world.

And I, I was so excited when you gave me this chance, Zibby, to, to, to tell this story and to tell this one little action that we're, our little campfire group is doing because it's just one of many, many small lights, as Miep Geist coined that phrase. She's sort of a hero of mine, as of many of ours. And I, and I, and I felt it's important that the world just sees and affirms that it's not only a past.

It's a living call to action. So that was my inspiration for being part of this. And just, it's true. You know, I, I started wearing a Jewish star after October 7th and I feel very lucky to have been in Israel just prior because it, I didn't know, you know, just for me personally, it just really strengthened a bond.

And It was a really glorious, exciting time at that moment, and I really feel that deeply now. So it just means so much to be part of this group and to be part of bringing some light. 

Zibby: Thank you. Well, so these were the kind of emails I was having, and this is why I wanted to make it a book, right? It came from a group chat and discussions and little bits and pieces, and yet everybody, I could sit and hear all of your stories. I bet we could. Spend weeks just hearing the stories of everybody in this room because everybody in this room has a story and a history and relatives and current experiences that make us all feel A connected, but B, terrified in the context of what's going on these days.

The main perk, if there are any perk. to this time is I have never felt so connected to a group of people ever. You know, I thought that like New Yorkers were all bonded after 9 11 and that was great. That lasted for like two seconds. But this is, this is something else entirely. This is a deep fundamental DNA connection across The planet, honestly.

But that does bring me to the current times, and not just the horrific attacks on October 7th, but the craziness that has ensued, which has been a very intentional campaign 20 years in the making by Hamas. that has infiltrated certainly here on every, in every way from traditional media to college campuses.

I don't need to tell all of you. I'm sure, you know, far more than I do, even though I'm kind of obsessive about all of this information. What do we do about it? How has it affected you personally? And uh, is the best way to speak up? Because I know everybody wants to help. And I always am talking to people, how can we help?

How can we help? But really, like, what has been most impactful for you? And that was a lot of questions, but just take it and run with it. Lihi, why don't you go? 

Lihi Lapid: I think that what you do here is, is a question that I will leave for, for others. But I do feel that, uh, this connection that you are talking, that was, was kind of lost in a way a long time ago, and suddenly, because, because, and you all talked about it, because things in our DNA of, of being refugees once, of leaving our homes suddenly, of being, uh, under attack is, and, and things that were at 7th of October, and the hostages, it touches something very deep inside.

All those things of people were hiding in the room and, and the fire was outside. It's things that we know from our grandparents and our great grandparents. And some of them came here, some of them came to Israel and, and, but suddenly this bonding is so, so strong. And, and I just say, I think we need you now to be friends and, and it's, and I think you need a little bit Israel for, for, for understanding that there will, my father in law, Tommy Lapid, he was a Holocaust survivor and he said, he tells a story about how he was at the Holocaust in Hungary and, and they escaped from the death march.

And then. Everybody died, but they had nowhere to go. So they went back to the ghetto because they didn't have anywhere to go. And then he said, I need to have a place to go. And we all, it doesn't matter if we live there or if we live here, we need to keep Israel alive. strong and for all of us to have a place to go if something wrong happens.

So we need you as a family. And, and I think that we all have the same DNA stories inside of us, like, like you all talked and, uh, and, and that's why it was so important for me to be in the book and to be. here today. Thank you.

Zibby: Wait, Lehi, were you in Israel on October 7th? 

Lihi Lapid: Yeah, I was in Israel on October 7th. Um, I remember the sirens. Our daughter, Yael, she's 27 and she's autistic. She has severe autism and she doesn't speak. And to be with her in the, in the shelter room, which was to explain to her, and I have to say something that there was, uh, I will finish the story and then I told Yair, after a while, inside the shelter room, outside, and then I told him, listen, Yair, there are, there are 40 Israelis were murdered.

And because he's got his job. So he said, much more, much more. And then it was. It's devastating. But I do, I want to say that two weeks ago there was the, the attack from Iran or something. And I was like, I went with my daughter to her home where she lives with her friend and I took her and of course there was the sirens on the way and like, and I was stuck there with eight adults with autism and two, one, two volunteers from, from Brazil were all the time on the phone with their parents that were worried about them. And the, the, the, all the friends of Yael, our daughter behaved so amazing. But the most important thing was that they had a big box with a loft of candies to give everybody. So that's what you put in the shelter room. Okay.

Lots and lots of, uh, and it was difficult. It's devastating. Um, um, marching all the time out on the streets for the, for the hostages. Um, one of the groups that went to the Rafik border and, and shouted to bring them back. I think, I think if we talk now about brotherhood and sisterhood and about a family, they are the daughters of all of us.

They are the boys of all of us and fathers of all of us. And there was. There's something that happened a few days ago, a few weeks ago, that someone called me and said, we're doing a demonstration, like something for the hostages. Can you come and read your poem? And I said, I never wrote a poem. I'm a prose writer.

And then I realized that since the 7th of October, all my lines are very short, because when I come to describe a young woman in a cage, how do you describe it? When I come to describe, you know, there was, I'm sorry, it's like, but it's things that There are 211 parents in Israel that lost their children.

all of their kids, like stayed with no kids. And that's the thing that I'm carrying with me every day, a single mother that lost her son in the, in the, and it's like things. So, so I'm not the story, but, but Israel and what we're going through there is the story. And I wish I really wish that on Thursday, when I fly back home, there will be some good news.

Okay. either about the hostages coming back or the end of the war. Thank you so much.

Annabel Gurwitch: I just want to reflect on what you said, but for me, I think You know, on the macro level, it's so hard as one single person to think, what do I do? One thing I think that is possible, what is possible for one person to do? For me, it's very important to be Jewish identified. right now. And that's something we can all do.

My social media has always included Jewish mother. So I've always identified as, as a Jewish person and a Jewish mother. But now it, my I mean, and I'm just, this is just one small action, is I make sure that I am having conversations about being Jewish, and that I am Jewish identified. I think that's very important because of, you know.

All the antisemitism and also just the, just the ugliness. So to, to be a Jewish light in the world, as each person, we can do that. And I, I, so I feel that's something I can do every day. I know this is a very small thing. Yesterday, on the way to the theater, you know, I retired as an actress. I spend my time writing.

I can't say would I have done this, chosen to do this play that's a very Jewish play. It is a play written by journalist Michelle Brooks, Mel Brooks daughter in law. But it is based on interviews with a Jewish teacher who survived Parkland and was teaching a Holocaust studies class when her students were killed in front of her.

The words never forget. on the wall. And would I have chosen? I don't know. I can't. I mean, I felt at this moment, it was very important to come and do this play and affirm this Very Jewish story right now. And so that's whatever action I can take right now. But on the way to the theater yesterday, just crossing 57th street, and I heard someone say Mazzeh, and I turned around and I said, Oh, are you, I heard you speaking Hebrew and I saw their faces change for a minute with the music.

a little bit of fear. And I said, are you in from Israel? And they said, Oh no, we, we live here. And I said, well, I just was concerned that you might be here from Israel. And I wanted to say, welcome and, and make you feel at home in New York. Because for the first time in my life, I felt like, what if you were in from Israel, what if you were Jewish and you didn't feel at home in New York?

That was a first for me. And you know. So, small x.

Nicola Kraus: I had started taking my class in September, so maybe a couple of weeks before the attacks, and then as I was seeing friends of mine, some of whom are here today, over the following months, people would say, are you sure you want to be Jewish now? And I'm like, I just got here, I can't go backwards. So, I think, you know, I'm so happy a friend of mine from my 50th, um, gave me this beautiful star and this very joyous necklace and I just wear it proudly every single day and I move through my neighborhood.

I'm lucky to have the oldest synagogue in Brooklyn is across the street from my house. So I live in a neighborhood with very good energy and I just, try to spread as much love and joy and kindness and, and pay attention to people and contact people. And I hope that then people go, Oh, well, I love a Jewish person.

And so that's one more. So that is my small way of trying to navigate that.

Talia Karner: When I wrote my latest novel, The Boy with a Star Tattoo, I wrote a Zionist book at the time that I thought the idea of Zionism has long disappeared. Or, has received some negative connotation that even Jews began to not wanting to identify as Zionist. And Zionism means that we believe in the Jews right for self definition in the land of our ancestors.

And don't let anybody tell you that it is something else. But my husband was the president. Thank you. My husband was the president of one of the largest Jewish organizations, Maccabi USA, and he fought to keep this byline underneath the, this, the mission of the organization is Zionist. And for Israel, the games every four years are in Israel, and there were people on the board who wanted to remove the fact that this was sports for Israel.

So I've been exposed to that kind of thinking, but having grown up in Israel and having I'm older than I look. I know your father in law. Having grown in Israel and remembering in the 1960s what it felt like to fight one more war and then prepare for another and how strong we felt about our conviction that we were fighting and building a country for the Jews of the world.

That kind of disappeared over the years as I live outside the country, but have had the perspective. And I wanted to write about it. I wanted to write about, my novel has, it's actually about Israel, two events that took place in France. I'm not gonna Talk about, more about the book as about the fact that that was what I was trying to do.

And I finished the manuscript early in 2023. But, and I presented it, I submitted it to HarperCollins, my publisher, and asked to take a sabbatical. I did not want to get on a book tour yet. Lo and behold, and we postponed it to early 2024. So the book was already, publicity and promotion had been underway.

in late, in the fall of 2023, with the kind of themes that this book was about. And that is where I found, for the first time in my life, anti Semitism. And for the first time that I said, we need to understand Zionism, we need to understand that we do not want to be like the Kurds and the Romis of the world, exploited, ridiculed, people with no country, with no land, because this is what the anti Semites want to see us.

They want, they are gearing towards a second Holocaust. And obviously, we don't have a choice. We need all of us to be together against that.

Zibby: So, in the context of the anti Semitism in the publishing world in particular, as we all know, and most of you may know, there was recently an a thousand person manifesto that so many people that we previously perhaps respected as authors and read widely, um, and now have been. the latest in the long string of betrayals to the other side, right?

They assigned a document saying that there should not be translated works in Israel and basically trying to advocate for the demise of the entire literary world in Israel or having anything to do with it, having their books translated. I'm not paraphrasing properly, but that was the gist of it. I, along with many other people signed the counter manifesto to this saying like, wait, that's not true.

Like, not okay. You can't do that. I joke, but there is something like this almost every day. And I've had a lot of people say recently, you know, I'm young and I want to be an author, but gosh, you know, maybe it's, now's not the time to be a Jewish person writing. And that makes me more sad and scared. So, I have been advocating for continuing to write and share our stories because what is more important?

But I'm curious what you all would say to the people who are scared to get involved and who feel, in publishing, in addition to many other, that there is this gating happening. 

Annabel Gurwitch: I'll just say one thing. I'm publishing my next book with Zibby. 

Zibby: Very true. It's true. 

Lihi Lapid: I can say, but I don't know. It's, I think it's a combination of the two.

My book was published with Harper's Collins, uh, on March. And of course they said, we'll approach stores to have you have an event and a book sign. And then I said, what's happening with that? And they said, hmm. And at the end, they didn't find any bookstore in Manhattan to do a book signing with me. At April, this April.

And I think it's combined also with the fact that I'm not just a writer, I'm also the wife of a politician in Israel, but, but, It hurt me so much and it brings me back to the other question, the previous question. So I think we are a community and I do think that again, the world remind us that We are a community and we are a big, huge, huge family.

And we need to remind our kids that, that they are part of, of the, the people of the book, right? We are called. So that's, uh, it broke my heart. I was very sad, but then I said, Hey, there's so many wonderful Jews in the world. in America that will read my book. So, so it will be.

Zibby: You have to now come do an event in my bookstore in Santa Monica. Open invitation. 

Nicola Kraus: Yeah. I don't understand why people think that the answer to anything is less information, less communication. It's just an anathema to me. I I've had agents and editors asking me about this over the last couple of years.

Or year and a half. And I think, if anything, we want more communication and more connection and more opportunities also to sit across from people you disagree with and listen to them. And so I, I don't know, I, I find it inexplicable and inexcusable. But thankfully, I do also find a lot of people in publishing who are incredibly, uh, supportive and excited to publish stories across a range of people.

So I think if you find someone who is shutting a door, keep going down the hall until you find an open door.

Lihi Lapid: I have to, to add that Harper's Calling's were amazing and they didn't say let's, uh, postpone the book publication because of what happened. They were perfectly. 

Talia Karner: I must share that since it became very known that there were attacks on Goodreads and Instagram and other places on Jewish authors, by May of this year, I started to demand the author's guilt to take a stand for us, but they won't. Finally, my, I, not only I wrote a letter and I separated in my letter, standing for Jewish authors versus those of us who support Israel in this war of survival. Just take a stand about Jewish authors being discriminated against, being canceled. I finally published my letter. I made it public.

It was picked by some news media, San Diego Jewish News. Not very important media, but enough. Finally, the Authors Guild came out with a statement. We are against anti Semitism and Islamophobia. Except that there is no known campaign against Muslim authors. My battles continue. There are a lot of strikes within the Authors Guild about my posts, and now I'm not, no longer.

I'm no longer free to post everything has to go through the moderation and just last week I got a message that my post was was not approved and you Restarted your six months clock. Those of you are members of the author's guild I ask that you join me in the fight because things 1, 000 authors what they did now You They moved all of this discussion from the open 15, 000 member boards to one they call policy, which has 100 members.

So we are talking to ourselves about it, about the 1, 000 authors fighting us with lies. Where is the moral compass of all of these authors? Where is it where the genocide is used upside down? Who is the one declaring? They wish to eliminate the other. How can your moral compass be so off? So, but it's only a hundred of us now within the author's Guild of 15,000.

Others don't know about it.

Zibby: There are so many examples and it would be depressing to run through them all. So I'm not going to, what is uplifting is how much we can do. And when we talk about what can one person do. When all the one people get together, that is a huge, huge movement. And that is what we have to remember. Every decision that you make, whether you're on social media and feel like posting or not, or you want to advocate at your kid's school, or your workplace, or write a letter to a friend, or try to change one mind, we are all holding the keys to this campaign.

We are all the ambassadors of it. And we can't forget that. Even if we're feeling discouraged or tired. We can't give up. There is no other choice. No one else is coming to help us. There are lots of organizations that can help. I'm part of Artists Against Anti Semitism, which Allison Hammer, who's in the front row, started up.

There are many places fighting, helping, giving tools. at your back, who are going to be here too. We have our book, which I highly recommend. I know you all bought it. Thank you so much. Give it as Hanukkah gifts, buy 10, you know, whatever, all the profits are donated, but do something, make a decision every day to help because you are making a difference.

I know we didn't really have time for Q and A and we were supposed to do that. I'm really sorry I messed up. I mean, I didn't totally mess up. I kind of did that on purpose. But, um, But I know that most of you are going down to the lunch after, and all these authors are going to be there. So come up, chat with us, ask questions, get your book signed by all the people here.

They're excited to be a part of it, and thank you all. Thank you to these four amazing panelists.

Talia Karner: Thank you, Zibby, for doing all of this. 

Zibby: Oh. 

Talia Karner: For taking the fight. 

Zibby: Yeah. Um, And thank you to the Stryker Center for having us here today. 

Lihi Lapid: And thank you all for caring. Really, thank you from the bottom of my heart.