Using Story to Build a Better World

How writing, books and authors can use the written word to humanize people who are different from us

Over the past week, I’ve been angry, sad, scared and so many other emotions. On a quiet Saturday morning, I was looking at Instagram to pass the time, and because I was recovering from hand surgery, and what I saw stopped me cold.

Families murdered. Babies beheaded. Young adults gunned down in a field at a music festival.

My people.

But this newsletter is about writing and publishing, and so I don’t want to co-opt it with politics. I want to find a way to share my feelings through a lens of voice and identity and the written word.

If You Want Firsthand Accounts…

Here is a podcast episode featuring Israeli voices about the attacks waged by Hamas terrorists. Please listen to hear from people on the ground.

pics from my trip to Israel in 2014

Voice As Representative of Identity

I was in my 20s, headed to Israel for the first or second time. Super excited. Nervous. On the plane alone and you know how it is, you strike up conversation with the person beside you. He was a few years older, a Palestinian living in Denver, headed to visit relatives in Ramallah.

It’s a long flight from New York to Tel Aviv, and we talked the whole time. About our lives. Our dreams. Our shared frustrations that, when we landed, I’d breeze through customs, with an Israeli guard saying, “Welcome home,” and he would likely be taken to an interrogation room before being allowed in.

I wish we’d exchanged contact information to stay in touch. But that rarely happens on planes. You have deep conversations with people you’ll never see again, grasping at the lifeline of commonality that exists between all humans who are willing to see it.

I don’t know what has happened to him or his family since then. Thirty years have passed. But I hope my friend would condemn outright terror and murder and inhumane brutality. And I would tell him that we can’t go on in hatred. We must find a way to live together, to lift each other up.

Five days after the terrorist massacre, I texted my friend, N., a Syrian refugee. He was watching all my Instagram stories, and I wondered what he thought. We should talk, I said. You know how much I respect you and always appreciate your attitudes, he said.

I asked how he was feeling about all of it. He said, I hope rational people in this world will stop the war. Innocent people are always the victims. What is happening now deepens hatred and divisions and creates a generation that hates. Believe me, violence is not the solution. All of this breaks my heart. Hamas is not a government and does not represent the aspirations of the Palestinian people.

We got on Zoom later that night, and it was so good to see him. He said he grew up learning to hate Jews, in school, from the government, but when he came here and met me and other Jewish people, he realized how wrong that was. I told him I am afraid. I told him that my people have been hated for thousands of years and it never stops. I told him I don’t understand the rage and blame against my tiny speck of population.

He said the only way forward, ever, with anyone, is through peace. Be nice to everyone. Show them love. They’ll mirror it back. We can keep talking, he said.

The next morning, I spent an hour and a half on Zoom with Israeli-Canadian author Merav Richter. Our conversation is shared below - about the power of storytelling to bring us close as we make sense of the world around us.

I’ve spent most of my life seeking stories of meaning and purpose. Listening to people. Sharing my perspectives and experiences. My author brand focuses on writing emotional novels with compelling Jewish characters who are determined to fill their lives with passion, purpose and love.

It’s important to me to create strong Jewish characters. Because it’s important to me to be a strong Jewish person.

I have always felt like the illusion of welcome is temporary and one day, I would feel what all Jews have felt throughout history: the ugly truth that we will never truly belong. Anywhere.

Last week’s terror attacks against Israelis - Jews - were devastating and horrifying and they happened because the purveyors of these attacks were convinced that Jews - me, my family, my people - are not human. If we don’t defend ourselves, no one will. Just look at the quick and loud protests around the world in response to these brutal murders, rapes and kidnappings, blaming the victims for the violence with Nazi symbols to echo their yells.

But I believe that most people, if they’re allowed to meet one another and have an honest conversation, can tone down the hate. Erase it, even. See the humanity, the common values and desires, in each other’s eyes.

The other day, I was interviewed on a podcast by Michelle Glogovac who said that my novel, Woman of Valor, helped her learn about people different from her, and build empathy. That’s what reading does, she said. It can build bridges, open minds, teach us about communities other than our own.

Make different people real and relatable.

Maybe that’s the message for today. Write. Because if you don’t, we might always remain at odds. Share a story that opens minds and worlds. Yes, we have real problems to solve, but I don’t have any easy answers, so in place of that, I’ll offer what I can.

I won’t apologize for being pro-Israel, but that doesn’t mean I am anti-Palestinian. I want peace and prosperity for all people and corrupt leaders stripped of their powers. But I won’t equivocate mass murder and terror with political platforms. No one should. And eradicating the only Jewish nation on the planet will not bring peace.

I support Israel, which is a tiny nation that has every right to exist just like every other nation, and which came into being just like every other nation, mostly because my people have spent millennia wandering to escape persecution and in search of acceptance and belonging. We never found it. And then we were nearly annihilated.

So yeah I think we deserve a place of our own where we can look out for ourselves.

Everyone deserves that.

So let’s stop posturing and competing and figure out how to live and love and tell great stories side by side.

You Can Help

Better than spouting off about politics, do something that helps people. Here are a few options and there are many more:

Magen David Adom. Donations support paramedics, EMTs, first responders and first-aid providers on the ground in Israel. afmda.org.

IsraAID. This Israel-based group, known for humanitarian work outside of Israel, is providing relief supplies and other support to Israeli communities affected by the war. israaid.org.

The International Red Cross is an impartial, neutral, and independent organization with a humanitarian mission to help victims of armed conflict and violence. Donate here.

Doctors Without Borders is a non-governmental "independent, impartial and neutral" organization that provides humanitarian aid to people affected by conflict, disease, and natural and human-made disasters.

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