The War of Words
Grateful for the love & support, but I won't hide
Just back from a long drive to Washington, D.C., for Thanksgiving, during which audio entertainment was king to get the miles to pass, and I want to share some podcasts for your listening pleasure. I’ve been interviewed on a few really great ones recently, talking with amazing women about making meaning at midlife, writing a book, being strong in my identity, finally doing what I have always been meant to do (WRITE!!!) and more. Here are the latest - please give them a listen!
And, if you haven’t yet discovered my Make Meaning Podcast, which I’ve been hosting since 2018, and which now features authors and people in publishing, I’d love it if you’d listen in! Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, and anywhere you find your podcasts.
Best of Women’s Fiction Exciting 2023 Fall Debuts
I Won’t Hide
Now to get a bit more serious. This is an essay I’ve been wanting to write but also not wanting to. I think I’ve waited because I wanted it to no longer be necessary. So here it is. And while I recently wrote for The Times of Israel about realizing who my friends are (thankfully, there are a lot of them), and two guys ruthlessly attacked me for sharing my feelings and experiences as some offense to their politics, I hope you’ll see this vulnerable share for what it is: one person’s experience at a trying time for our world.
You know, I always thought humans were getting better over time. Now I’m not so sure. Are we destined to keep repeating the mistakes of a brutal and unenlightened past? Are we actually worse off than animals in the way that we use our higher brain power to manipulate and ostracize and judge? I sure hope not. But I’m wondering.
Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, many caring friends have reached out to see how I, as a proud and strong Jewish woman, am doing.
I’m grateful. Really, I am.
And several have said, “I would hide you.”
Which caught the breath in my throat and stopped my heart for just a second. I mean, thank you, really, for knowing right from wrong and being in my corner.
But I don’t want to have to hide.
And also, I’m not sure any of us knows what we would do IF…I’d like to think we would be strong and principled, but we have (thankfully) never had to live through the bigoted maniacal times that led to the Holocaust.
I don’t want the world to be where it was nearly 100 years ago, when the Nazis hatched their plan to rid the world of Jews. I don’t want the world to be so upside down that people can’t see that calls for the death of Jews is wrong or excuse it as politics.
As a writer who has published countless first-person essays about my life in revealing and honest ways, I don’t believe in hiding. I am a proud, Jewish woman, a strong Jew steeped in identity and grateful that there is one place on the planet I can go, no questions asked, and be safe.
That’s Israel, by the way.
Israel is slightly smaller land-wise than the state of New Jersey. It is a fairly young country, formed in 1948, just one year after the UN Partition Plan offered a solution to have a Jewish state and an Arab state side by side. The Jews said yes. The Arabs said no. The day after the Jewish state was formed, neighboring Arab countries waged a war that they hoped would erase this nascent nation entirely. (For more history, read Noa Tishby’s book, Israel: a simple guide to the most misunderstood nation on Earth.) But Israel won that war, and the country grew and flourished and they turned a dry piece of land in the hot desert with no natural resources into a thriving, blooming, productive place that is one of the best examples of democracy in the world. (Ask the Arab Israelis who comprise one-third of the Knesset.)
I am the first to say that Israel is not a perfect place. Certainly not with the current prime minister. Every government has its crazies and its wackos and its flaws. But Israel is the only country with the word anti- in front of it. And that perplexes me.
This newsletter is about writing, not politics, so I’ll just say I am proud to be who I am. Proud of my ancestry and heritage and culture.
Just like Palestinians, who yearn for a better life, and self-determination. I understand and relate to that yearning, and I want them to have it. In fact, I want all people on this planet to have opportunity and freedom and community and connection. I want the militant terrorizers gone. All of them indiscriminately, from every corner of the planet.
I want every person on this planet to live in freedom and prosperity and be able to celebrate not only their own culture, but the cultures of their generous and kind neighbors.
I grew up believing in America as a melting pot and sure, that was a privileged perspective because I never really faced discrimination or lack of opportunity. But my family came to this country four generations ago with literally nothing but the brass candlesticks that I light every Friday and the hope for a better life than the one they’d left in villages pillaged and rampaged by murderous anti-semites. (Seriously, why do people hate Jews so much?)
My father was an entrepreneur in the scrap metal industry, which was founded by Jews because they weren’t allowed into careers in precious metal trading. So they collected garbage (literally) and sold it to make money. The very definition of scrappy.
Scrappiness is in my character and in my blood. It’s in the blood of all immigrants and refugees. You have to be scrappy to survive hardship. Everyone should have opportunity and prosperity. It doesn’t hurt me if someone else gets a chance. Or a million someone elses.
Thankfully, the good people far outnumber the bad ones. Social media and news headlines are making it seem otherwise.
In addition to actual fighting on the ground, this is a war of words. It’s the rhetoric that drives us. And now, we live in this 24/7, quick-hit culture where we jump on a post or a bandwagon before we check it out and understand fully what the words mean or if they’re even true.
I’m tired of this war of words. Are you? There is so much yelling, posting, insisting that I’m right, no you’re right, no they’re right. It’s exhausting. What if we were all a little bit right, and also completely wrong? What if the words aren’t perfectly conveying what needs to be?
I’d far rather create an ideal world on the page in front of me, where everyone can be friends, and everyone cares about the human outcome.
As an author, I write stories about compelling Jewish characters who fill their lives with passion, purpose and love. Happy stories, with challenges along the way. The world is full of discord. I don’t want to add to it or immerse in it more than necessary.
I choose to imagine a better, happier world where we all have a chance and can all be friends. Maybe I’m naive to hope for this, but I believe it’s possible. I’m pretty good at manifesting things, so I figure if I keep saying it, keep writing it, one day it might actually come true.
Write With Me
Write in community with some great people, and grab time to work on your own writing - whether an existing project or inspired by some writing prompts I’ll provide. My next FREE Writealong is December 3rd at 11 a.m. ET on Zoom. Sign up here.
Woman of Valor
Join me for a reading, where I will share excerpts from my novel, WOMAN OF VALOR, at the Detroit Public Library on December 5th!
I’ll also be speaking about my novel, WOMAN OF VALOR, at Congregation Beth Ahm on Shabbat, at a lunch and learn, on December 9th. And I’m excited to have book talks coming up in January in Honolulu’s Jewish and academic communities as well as in Los Angeles and the Bay Area in February, Dallas and Portland in March and more!
If you know of a synagogue, book club or university that might be interested in having me present on the power of strong women’s voices and the importance of creating compelling Jewish characters, let me know!
Thanks for reading.
Love, Lynne
Lynne,
Thank you for your candor and courage. Teaching children to be courageous is the primary topic of my weekly newsletter and character trait in Children's Books. Thank you for the example you are setting.
My wife and I spent 10 days touring Israel in September. What an amazing place and experience! So when, just 2 weeks after we returned the October 7th attack happened, our hearts broke. We have been praying daily for all the innocent people caught in the tragic war.
Darcy