Books

Deceit, desire & the divine

In Seattle, hours after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, two FBI agents knock on Monty’s door, asking questions about his Afghan partner, who has seemingly disappeared. How much does Monty really know about Jamal? What does he know about himself?

Vancouver writer Gareth Sirotnik’s Endless Blind Passions (Capsicum Press, 2025) jumps right into the chaos and uncertainty that 9/11 sparked in the United States, and beyond. The novel centres on the character of Monty, a Jewish, gay man in his mid-50s, who thought he had finally settled into himself and his life, yet is forced to reevaluate that thought when the FBI arrive.

Alternating between the repeated visits of the FBI agents and the memories their inquiries trigger for Monty, we witness the fragility of Monty’s contentment and the tumultuous paths that he has chosen. He has lived fully, most would say, experimenting sexually, spiritually, politically and morally. He is a seeker and his soul-searching is a work in progress, despite his initial belief that he had found himself – and peace – once he’d met Jamal.

Endless Blind Passions is a thriller-meets-coming-of-age story, unusual perhaps in its seriousness, which sometimes gets in the way (as does dialogue that doesn’t always sound natural), but it’s entertaining. Most of us don’t really “find” ourselves as teenagers – Monty certainly didn’t – but are continually discovering aspects of ourselves. In our lives, we do things that make us proud, and things that carry shame or regret. Hopefully, we learn from our experiences and become a better person, but who is even to say what that means.

Sirotnik’s personal journey inspires Monty’s, that’s for sure. Sirotnik grew up in Los Angeles, graduated from college in Portland, moved to Canada in 1971 (Monty’s brother lives in Canada) and, most notably, is gay, Jewish and a longtime practitioner of Zen Buddhism.

As the novel’s title implies, Zen is a vital component of the story. Monty’s spiritual awakening occurs alongside drug-fueled encounters and unconventional relationships. He works (both consciously and subconsciously) to strip away social personas and confront his “true self.” He lives intensely, even hedonistically, but not necessarily deeply in the introspective sense, or even in knowing his various romantic partners. His ego prevents him from seeing the reality of situations, including the impact of his own actions on others throughout his life.

That’s all on a personal level. Paralleling Monty’s understanding of his “blind passions” is the realization that American society is not what it was, let’s say, sold as being. Sept. 11, 2001, marked a significant increase in racism, xenophobia, paranoia, government surveillance – it did not create them. In the novel, Jamal represents “the other” that became society’s “blind passion” after the attacks that day on the United States, but Monty’s past – though only going back 50ish years – highlights that the concept of “the other” has existed as long as humanity.

Ultimately, the novel posits that true spiritual awakening only happens when we acknowledge our “endless blind passions,” drop our masks and face reality as our true selves. It does this in an engaging way, with readers learning a lot along the way, while rooting for love to win out.

Reclaiming sacredness

“Everything changes when we are rooted in our sacredness,” writes Jeff Golden in his self-published, award-winning book Reclaiming the Sacred: Healing Our Relationships with Ourselves and the World (2022).

“When we can feel that we are an essential part of the universe, that we are the breath of the divine,” Golden believes that we can transform what he describes as our “morally, spiritually, ecologically, and, soon enough, economically” bankrupt system into “an entirely different way of living and being, rooted in the wonder, reverence, and connection that have long nourished our ancestors, yet unique to our times and needs and opportunities.”

Reclaiming the Sacred is a densely packed book, almost overflowing with facts and ideas (there are 38 pages of endnotes). Golden includes narratives, data, poems, blessings and philosophy from countless thinkers and doers. He repeats key themes – a necessary action given the amount of information he imparts. He has some punchy and creative, if long, chapter headings (“More Sleep, Less Cow: Physical Health and Happiness” and “Retail Therapy: Taking Our Insecurities and Fears to the Mall,” for example) and writes conversationally.

His thesis is that materialism not only can’t make us happy but prevents us from realizing our own inherent wealth, and that of the world, which we are destroying, along with many of its inhabitants. “Between 40 and 80% of all species may not survive to see the next century,” he writes. “We are one of those species.”

Golden argues against the idea that we come into the world alone and die alone; in fact, he contends that we are never alone, so intertwined we are with the world, its elements, its creatures, its plants, its particles. He sees “religion as the experience of profound belonging,” rather than as “a set of doctrines that must be believed and obeyed.” He hopes the book will support readers on their journey to reclaim themselves and the world as sacred.

Proceeds from the sale of Reclaiming the Sacred go to nonprofits doing work related to its themes. For more information about that and about the courses and workshops Golden teaches, go to reclaimingthesacred.net.

Creative project ideas

Considering the extra challenges Jews have faced these last few years, there are many of us who have reacted by delving more into our Judaism and our Jewish identities. Perhaps that’s why a book the Independent received a handful of years ago seems even more relevant now – both as a way to explore one’s identity, but also one’s creativity. With summer approaching and school soon letting out, who couldn’t use some ideas on how to fill the coming increase in a young person’s unstructured hours?

DIJ – Do It Jewish: Use Your Jewish Creativity! by Barbara Bietz, with colourful and playful illustrations by Daria Grinevich, is targeted to children 8 to 12 years old, but, honestly, any older person who has been contemplating their creative side would glean something, many things, from it. Published by Intergalactic Afikoman in December 2020, in the heart of the pandemic, it fell by the JI’s wayside, unfortunately, but not out of mind. So, while not hot off the press, it is hot off the JI bookshelf, and well worth adding to your household as a guide for worthwhile projects that could be used simply to pass the time in a fun, imaginative way, or it could spark a career or hobby path.

The book has chapters on filmmaking, cartooning and graphic novels, cooking, songwriting, painting and art, midrash, and Judaica. Each chapter comprises a main interview with a practitioner of the artform being presented, with the interview divided into four main sections: Doing It Jewish, Keeping It Going, Making It As Good As It Can Be, and Taking It Further. Then, there is a secondary artist spotlight.

Each chapter concludes with a how-to summary of sorts, featuring ideas of what to do and what questions you might ask yourself as you work through an idea. And, each chapter includes a list of necessary tools for the project, as well as a glossary of terms comprised mainly of Jewish words, like Talmud, kreplach, Shavuot or dreidel, but also script, graphic design, choreography and beatnik.

DIJ – Do It Jewish features almost 20 artists sharing some of their inspirations, processes and advice, as well as concrete steps for aspiring artists to embrace their Jewishness and express it creatively.

Expanding the healing

Elana Epstein shares her family’s narrative of recovery in Today I Will Be Fearless. (photo from Elana Epstein)

When Elana Epstein and her husband, David, confronted the reality that their son, Noah, was an addict, her life shifted on its axis.

In her emotional, practical, moving book, Today I Will Be Fearless: Rising Through My Son’s Drug Addiction, Epstein shares her family’s narrative of recovery, while digging into complex related issues like intergenerational trauma, societal silence and stigma, and finding purpose, resilience and power in the darkest moments of life. In the process of writing and sharing her story, Epstein has found new meaning and mission for her life.

“Writing the book was how I got better, deepened into my own recovery and saw the pattern of what recovery asks of us,” the Vancouver mother of three adult sons told the Independent. “And, the deeper I went into the story, the deeper I uncovered the gems of the why I was doing things.

“This is happening for more than just my own son’s healing,” she said. “It’s my healing.”

She took her son’s recovery as an opportunity for her own self-understanding and improvement. The book, though, intends to expand the healing.

“It’s for a wider community,” Epstein said. “I was determined to be a channel for whoever needed support and a companion along this journey because people do this alone.”

Epstein, a yoga teacher, reiki master and spiritual practitioner, had long understood the language of healing. But addiction, she said, stripped her of any illusion of mastery.

“It felt as if everything I had learned was a waste because I did not know my son was struggling with addiction,” she said. “It felt as if the tools were more of a hindrance than a help. But quickly my spirit reminded me the tools I had were the ones that would support me to get through this if only I could go deeper with them. That was the pivotal moment of my knowing I could and would get through this.”

She also realized that Noah was not the only one who needed to adapt to changing realities.

“I took the lens of recovery and turned it onto me and took the opportunity to delve into the 12 steps and see where I needed to release myself from the clutches of my ego and some of my ancestral teachings or just threads that were hanging around,” she said, adding that she began to see the impacts of intergenerational trauma.

“I needed to peel back the layers and see that I was codependent and I was a people-pleaser and I didn’t know how to love myself well enough – all while my son is learning to do the same thing.”

Several months into Noah’s recovery, Epstein broke her leg while skiing. She took it as a sign from the universe to step back, focus inward and accept help.

“Maybe four days after surgery I was at home. I was sitting on the couch and I was feeling really sorry for myself. What has happened to my life? Isn’t it enough? How many more things … COVID and Noah and the war. And then I break my leg and I hear immediately, ‘You are going to write your book.’”

There has always been a book in her, Epstein said. She just didn’t know what it was going to be about. Now, it became clear.

“This is my story, how I got through the journey of loving my son through his own addiction,” she said. “So, I started just journaling, and one thing led to the other and, a year later, I had a blueprint.”

As the book came together, she realized the writing process was no longer just for her own healing. “This was how I was going to show up for people,” she said.

Among the self-doubts she had to overcome was the realization that she has wisdom to share.

“I would say things like, ‘in my opinion’ and ‘in my humble experience,’” she said. “That was classic Elana. I started to accept that I actually do know what I’m talking about and there’s no reason to hold back and let’s go and let’s be authentically who we are.”

It turns out there was a demand for the wisdom of someone who has been through what Epstein’s family has.

“Although I had a desire that this would be a companion, I couldn’t have imagined it would be this well received … not just by families who are wading in the waters of addiction and recovery, but by people who are curious,” she said. “People are telling me this is a blueprint and a companion for life. One woman just said to me yesterday, ‘I keep you by my night table and, every once in awhile, I just pick it up and I read a sentence and it’s my teaching for what I’m struggling with in my own life.’”

Finding light in darkness is a recurring theme in the book.

“When bad things happen, people look for the reasons and they look for the why. And they definitely want to blame something or somebody,” Epstein said. “You don’t have to do that. You can accept what happens as a gateway to becoming and connecting to a version of yourself that is more beautiful than you can ever imagine and stronger that you can ever imagine. Stop being afraid of the potential things.”

Her family’s Jewishness infuses the book.

“My message to the Jewish reader is this book is filled with mystical wisdom that can guide you to a more peaceful existence one day at a time with what is coursing through our blood and bones,” said Epstein. “I had the vision early on that I was going to be a part of bringing more awareness into the Jewish community because we have lost too many. Many children and too many people suffer in silence.”

When Rabbi Josh Corber took over the Jewish Addiction Community Service and Jewish Family Services took the group under their umbrella, Epstein discussed how she might contribute to the work.

She took the lead on running a group for families navigating a member’s addiction or recovery. She said she hopes that the book might land in the right place, just when an individual or family needs to hear her message.

“If that person can pick up my book, then we’re living that old adage that the Talmud teaches: if you save one life, it is as if you are saving an entire world,” she said, “And I truly believe that.”

Hannah Senesh – a unique hero

Douglas Century signs copies of his book Crash of the Heavens at the JCC Jewish Book Festival earlier this year. (photo by Tova Kornfeld)

Douglas Century’s Crash of the Heavens: The Remarkable Story of Hannah Senesh and the Only Military Mission to Rescue Europe’s Jews During World War II is a meticulously researched and spell-binding narrative of Senesh’s life, and pre- and postwar Europe and Palestine.

Senesh, born in 1921, grew up in a middle-class family in Budapest until the Nazis came to power in the 1930s. The rise of antisemitism drove her to join a Zionist youth group and she became obsessed with emigrating to British Palestine. In 1938, she made aliyah to a northern kibbutz, and part of her metamorphosis was to Hebraize her identity, changing her name from Aniko Szenes.

As word of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis started to leak out, Jews in Palestine (numbering about 600,000) sought ways to rescue their European brethren. British Intelligence MI9, tasked with assisting the escape of thousands of Allied POWs, needed people with local language skills and area knowledge. In 1943, Senesh was recruited, one of three Jewish women in a cohort of 37, to be trained as a paratrooper and radio operator. She made her first jump – into Yugoslavia – in March 1944, where she liaised with Partisan groups to carry out sabotage missions. Her hope was to cross into Hungary to save her family and others, but she was captured by Hungarian gendarmes, imprisoned, tortured, tried for treason and executed by firing squad on Nov. 7, 1944.

Sharing details from her diary, which Senesh kept from the age of 13, Century takes readers into her pains, her joys. Her poetry is part of her legacy: “A Walk to Caesarea” is almost a second national anthem in Israel, where many streets, parks and schools bear her name. Ironically, Hungarians know little about her.

The Independent interviewed Century by email.

JI: How did you first become interested in Senesh?

DC: I first learned about Hannah when I was about 8 years old at the I.L. Peretz Shul in Calgary. Our principal was a Holocaust survivor – he’d lived through the Shoah as a boy in Poland. He told us the story of Hannah’s courage, her refusal to give up her secret British radio codes despite months of horrific physical and psychological torture at the hands of the Gestapo.

At that age, I’m sure it was just the broad strokes of the story: she wouldn’t betray her people, she was sentenced to execution by firing squad when she was 23 years old.

Who could understand the concept of martyrdom at the age of 8? Certainly not me. But I did understand that this was a brave young woman who went to her death and wouldn’t beg for mercy “from hangmen and murderers” – those were her exact words.

She refused to wear a blindfold as she faced the firing squad, daring the Hungarian soldiers with rifles to look her in the eyes as shot.

To hear that story age 8 – well, it was amazing. It was also terrifying. Clearly, it’s haunted me since childhood.

JI: This is the first time you are writing about a woman. Was that decision purposeful?

DC: I never thought about it that way. I’ve tended to write books with male protagonists. Technically, though, the first book I ever published – when I was in my mid-20s – was a young adult biography of the Nobel-laureate novelist Toni Morrison.

I conceptualized this book as a military rescue mission – most of the action takes place between late 1943 and late 1944, with a “ticking-clock” thriller pacing – and, yes, in the book proposal, I consciously chose to focus on the three women Palmach commandos and parachutists: Hannah Senesh, Haviva Reik and Surika Braverman.

As I was writing … it became clear that the central storyline needed to be Hannah’s. To a lesser extent, I write about the other parachutists’ missions in Slovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia.

JI: What research did you do for the book?

DC: There are so many primary source documents available. All of Hannah’s poetry, diaries, letters and photographs are in the National Library of Israel archive. There are also many memoirs – most of them out of print – by the various parachutists. There are invaluable oral histories in the U.S. Holocaust Museum and at Yad Vashem. For four years, I felt like I was basically living in archives and military libraries, but I knew that I’d never do this story justice solely on previously published research.

I flew to Tel Aviv in the summer of 2023 to do what we used to call “shoe-leather reporting.” I spent weeks in Israel, retracing the footsteps of Hannah Senesh and the other parachutists. That summer of 2023, I met David Senesh – Hannah’s nephew – a renowned psychotherapist specializing in treating trauma. David was himself a POW and tortured by the Egyptians in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

I’ve become close friends with David and his wife…. They really gave me some valuable personal insights into the family dynamic – and I learned things that have never been in other books.

JI: Was there a particular demographic you were trying to capture?

DC: I set out to write this book for one reader – my daughter, Lena. She’s studying English and wants to be an author. My daughter was 22 when I finished the book; Hannah was 22 when she embarked on her paratrooper mission in March of 1944. My daughter said, “Thank God you’re not writing about another complex, sociopathic antihero! Hannah is a courageous and talented woman who the reader can actually admire.”

JI: How did you arrive at the book’s title?

DC: When I was pitching the idea to my literary agent, I was already writing about Hannah, but it was about to be the centenary of her birth in July 2021 and 150 IDF paratroopers were recreating her jump in a mission called Operation Crash of the Heavens. The title comes from Hannah’s most famous poem, “A Walk to Caesarea,” better known by its musical adaptation, “Eli, Eli.” It’s a very short poem, and Hannah’s next-to-last line in Hebrew is “barak hashamayim.” The literal translation is “the lightning in the sky,” but, to me, the most artful translation is, “the crash of the heavens.”

JI: What has the reception to the book been like?

DC: It’s been wonderful, warm and very appreciative. Even people who know about Hannah Senesh – especially people from Israel – tell me that I introduced stories and things they never knew before.

I’ve spoken at a few schools: the Hannah Senesh Community Day School in Brooklyn, King David High School in Vancouver, Yeshiva University in New York. When I’m talking to teenagers, I try to contextualize the story by stressing how assimilated the Jews of Hungary were, especially in Budapest. They felt fully Hungarian. But then the series of so-called “Jewish Bills” came into effect, limiting the number of Jews in the professions, setting quotas for university – Hannah had wanted to study education and become a schoolteacher but that became impossible. Ultimately, Jews couldn’t own property, couldn’t have a telephone. They were stripped of all civil rights – by the Kingdom of Hungary, of course, not by Nazi Germany.

I ask high school kids and university students: Do you guys feel Canadian? You’re proud of Canada? Cheer for Canada in the Olympics? What if, overnight, the government said: “You’re not Canadian. Turn in your passport. You can’t go to university. You need to move out of your house – you can only live on certain streets in houses marked with a yellow star. You can’t be out in public past noon.” Why? Because Parliament passed a new law that says you’re no longer a Canadian – you’re a Jew. That means you’re an alien living among Canadians without the rights or privileges of a citizen. How would you feel? What would you do?

JI: You started this book before Oct. 7, 2023. Did that tragic event and its aftermath affect the way you wrote the narrative?

DC: Absolutely. I was deep into the writing process before Oct. 7, 2023. I knew that words like Zionism, Israel and Palestine were hot buttons when I started writing the book, but after Oct. 7, they became third rails.

I tried not to let it affect the way I was writing the book. Of course, seeing all the anti-Israel protests exploding on campuses and in city streets the past couple of years, hearing all the outright distortion of history, it affects a writer’s psyche. As we were designing maps for the book, for example, I insisted that they said, “British Mandate for Palestine” as well as “Eretz Israel.”… While writing the first draft, I had non-Jewish friends asking me, “Doug, what is Zionism?” and I realized that, in the post-Oct. 7 world, it was a critical question. I felt I should let Hannah define what Zionism meant to her. On Oct. 27, 1938, she writes in her diary: “I don’t know if I’ve already mentioned that I’ve become a Zionist. This word stands for a tremendous number of things. To me, it means, in short, that I now consciously and strongly feel I am a Jew, and am proud of it.” Full stop.

JI: If you would have been able to interview Senesh, what would you have asked?

DC: I have so many questions. I don’t want to give any plot spoilers, but there’s one story which hasn’t been told before in previous books. In the summer of 1944, Hannah helped a young Slovakian-Jewish woman named Matilda Glattstein to escape from the Gestapo prison in Budapest. Hannah learned that Matilda was pregnant and devised a complicated escape plan, which means she knew exactly how to break out of the prison and yet she herself didn’t. She saved another woman’s life – but not her own. I’d ask Hannah this question: “If you could rescue Matilda Glattstein, a pregnant woman with no military training, why didn’t you rescue yourself?” I’ve got my own theories, but I would love to ask Hannah.

JI: Why should people read your book?

DC: On the most basic level, I hope they want to read a compelling, exciting and emotional story of heroism during the darkest days of World War II. In hindsight, I didn’t write the book just for my daughter, or just for young Jewish women, or for anyone who aspires to do what Hannah did – become a poet or author and leave her mark on the world. Within the story, I’m asking some more universal questions: What do we mean by courage? Where does moral conviction come from?

We’re living in a crazy era, and it’s worth remembering that there are some causes for which it might be necessary to make the ultimate sacrifice….

JI: Tell me about your collaboration with Kosha Dillz?

DC: Kosha Dillz is someone I’ve known for years and years. His real name is Rami Even-Esh. [He’s] an Israeli-American rapper, filmmaker, social media personality and influencer. I sent him an ARC [advance reading copy] of Crash of the Heavens last October and we just started bouncing around ideas.

We agreed that, with this terrifying rise in antisemitism, it’s the perfect time to make the name Hannah Senesh – poet, paratrooper, Palmach commando – known to all the millions of people in their teens, 20s and 30s who are too busy “doom scrolling” to read the book. I figured, what better way to reach them than to have a gifted modern-day poet like Kosha Dillz breathe fresh energy and inspiration into her story? He wrote some amazing lyrics based on my book and we shot a video on the streets of New York for his song called “Hannah Senesh.”… You can find it on all the streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.

JI: Are there any plans to use your book as the basis for a film or play?

DC: Yes, people have been talking about an adaptation, but the world of TV and film adaptations is so mercurial. Right now, we’re working on an adaptation of my previous book, The Last Boss of Brighton, about the life and times of a Soviet-born Jewish mobster – the aforementioned “complex, sociopathic antihero.”… At the same time, one of my earlier books – also about the Mafia in New York City – is being developed for a series…. But we’ll see what happens. Stay tuned.

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

Stories of trauma, resilience

Love runs through every word in Voices of Resilience: An Anthology of Stories Written by Children of Holocaust Survivors, edited by Deborah (Devora) Ross-Grayman with Wendy Bancroft and the writers.

This compelling, hopeful and inspiring collection of stories will be launched on May 25, 7 p.m., in the Floral Hall at VanDusen Botanical Garden in an event supported by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC). Some of the authors will share parts of their stories, and signed books will be available for purchase.

The 12 contributors of stories and poems are children of Holocaust survivors and members of the Vancouver Second-Generation (2G) Group, which Ross-Grayman joined in 1993 and of which she is now a facilitator. Bancroft, a former journalist and researcher, is a trained instructor of guided autobiography.

“After an extensive investigation to better understand the impact of the Shoah’s legacy, Wendy adapted and crafted themes for our group,” writes Ross-Grayman in the book’s preface.

“What began as a six-week course for six of us grew to a two-year writing project for 12 participants,” she explains. “Through laughter and tears, we marveled at the similarity in our felt experiences despite the varied external circumstances. At times it was challenging to face and hold our parents’ pain and loss; at times we were sleepless and anxious, but we supported each other, developed deep bonds, and persevered. Through listening and reﬂecting on each of the stories, our understanding of ourselves and each other grew as we shared what some of us had never shared and, with understanding, came to a deeper compassion for ourselves and our parents.

“Our narratives so impressed Wendy that she recommended organizing an anthology. We included accounts of our parents’ survival to honour their lives and illustrate examples of post-traumatic growth – the positive psychological changes that can unintentionally arise from a life crisis or traumatic event, even while acknowledging the profound distress such experiences entail.”

The simultaneous holding of grief and contentment, even joy, is remarkable, as is the strength to continue, to grow, to heal – as much as healing is possible. The authors (in order of entries) – Gabriella Klein, Ross-Grayman, Henry Ross-Grayman, Jane Heyman, Marg Van Wielingen, Fran Alexander, Agi Rejto, Marianne Rev, Esther Chase, Barbara Gard, Olga Campbell and Sidi Schaffer – are open, sharing personal, vulnerable experiences on the page. The intergenerational impacts of trauma are clear from their diverse experiences, but so is the capacity for finding peace, for building community, for embracing one’s cultural roots while forging your own individual identity. While specific to the Holocaust, these stories, these remembrances, speak to a universal experience of living through and with historical trauma.

The anthology, put out by Amsterdam Publishers as part of the series Holocaust Survivor True Stories, is dedicated to the writers’ families; “to those who risked everything to save lives; to those who survived; to the millions who perished in the Holocaust; and to all people affected by war, displacement and genocide.” It is published in memory of Rev, who passed away in January.

Dr. Robert Krell, a psychiatrist, author, child survivor and founding president of the VHEC, wrote the book’s foreword, in which he shares some of his own story – he is both a Holocaust survivor and a 2G child – and offers emotional context. Dr. Chris Friedrichs, professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia, provides historical context.

Krell explains that, in general, “the second-generation consists of those born after the war, thousands in the displaced persons (DP) camps, which, for several years, recorded the highest birth rate in the world!” He talks about some of the experiences that 2G have in common, such as the need to sometimes parent their parents, how it feels to live “with the ghosts of the missing.”

“There are moments one cannot forget, must not forget, and these memories linger and reverberate throughout life, reviving the inner rage about the outrage committed against our parents and us,” writes Krell.

“It should therefore be no surprise that this collection of recollections reveals evidence of a surviving rage, problems with trust, confrontations with the meaning of death, and remarkable attempts to reinvigorate a life with meaning, including a meaningful spiritual engagement, whether within the Jewish traditions or not.”

“Mass murders were nothing new in history, but the Holocaust revealed that a once civilized society could orchestrate a program of extermination of human lives on a scale and in a manner that had never been imagined before,” writes Friedrichs. “It was so extensive and so unspeakably brutal that it gave rise to the very concept of genocide.”

Friedrichs writes concisely of the origins of the Holocaust, what happened and about how there are any survivors, as well as about some of the challenges survivors faced after the war.

“This volume reveals not only the enormous variety of what survivors went through but also the tremendous range of emotions and experiences that shaped the lives of their children,” he writes. “Though the Shoah ended 80 years ago, it is a living presence for all members of the Jewish people, and for none more so than those Jews whose own parents had survived this event without comparison in the modern history of humanity.”

In Voices of Resilience, each 2G writer’s chapter includes a brief biography, their parents’ survival stories and a few of their own stories or poems. Maps near the anthology’s beginning shows where all the authors were born and all the survivor parents’ birthplaces. The geography spans continents: Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America.

Despite vastly different experiences, there are recurring topics: dealing with antisemitism; taking care of their survivor parent; feelings of insufficiency, fear and sadness; being conflicted about religion and feeling like an outsider even inside the Jewish community.

The writers have worked to make their lives and the larger world better, as did their parents. The word “love” is prominent in these stories, as is its expression in the enduring strength of the family relationships, the caring for others, as well as oneself, the compassion shown, the emotional connections forged.

“We offer our stories as a source of hope and the possibility of resilience in the aftermath of trauma,” writes Deborah Ross-Grayman in the afterword.

No one contribution is more quotable than another. The collection does indeed offer hope, as well as thought-provoking explorations of memory, displacement and the generational impacts of genocide.

To attend the launch, RSVP at vhec.org. The anthology is available on Amazon for those who can’t make it on the 25th.

The hidden hand of hate

Warren Kinsella has spent much of his career studying the darker corners of political life. A lawyer by training, author of about a dozen books and a longtime political strategist, he has written about Holocaust denial, far-right extremism and organized hate movements.

In his just-released book, The Hidden Hand: The Information War and the Rise of Antisemitic Propaganda, he follows these threads down the unseemly rabbit hole that has perplexed many observers since Oct. 7, 2023: the sudden and superficially spontaneous eruption of anti-Israel activism across Western campuses and cities in the aftermath of the horrendous atrocities of that day.

Kinsella’s thesis is straightforward and, to most readers of these pages, probably neither controversial nor surprising. The worldwide surge in anti-Israel protests, he argues, is not organic. Rather, it reflects a long-developed propaganda infrastructure – the “hidden hand” – involving the Iranian regime, Hamas, Hezbollah and a constellation of worldwide activist organizations that have spent years building networks capable of shaping Western public opinion.

Hamas, Kinsella argues, fights two wars simultaneously. One is the familiar military campaign conducted with rockets, bullets and suicide attacks. The other is an information war, waged through imagery, messaging and propaganda. Israel may well win the first war, he suggests, but the second – the battle for global public opinion – is far less certain.

The book opens with the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7. While Israelis were still grappling with the scale of the massacre, demonstrations against Israel began sweeping Western campuses and cities. In the United States, a “national student walkout” took place within days of Oct. 7. Activists insisted these events were spontaneous expressions of outrage over the war in Gaza – but many of them took place before there was even a war in Gaza.

Many of the protests, Kinsella writes, appeared to have been organized rapidly with shared messaging, identical slogans and coordinated materials. Student groups that claimed to be independent grassroots organizations were often connected to larger activist networks. Manuals, posters and protest toolkits circulated almost immediately.

This pattern is central to the book’s argument. What looks like decentralized activism, Kinsella contends, often reveals indisputable signs of coordination.

One of the more striking anecdotes in the book involves Gary Wexler, a California professor who worked with the Ford Foundation on programs in Israel and Palestine during the Oslo peace process. Wexler recalls being warned by a leading Palestinian civil society coordinator that pro-Palestinian networks would one day rival – and surpass – the vaunted Jewish advocacy organizations in their ability to mobilize globally. Funding, the activist reportedly told him, would come from European institutions, Arab governments and wealthy donors.

Years later, Wexler began to see the prediction materialize in movements such as the push for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), Israel Apartheid Week and international flotillas challenging Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

Kinsella stops short of claiming a single command centre orchestrating these movements. Instead, he suggests a looser ecosystem in which state actors, activist organizations and sympathetic nongovernmental organizations amplify one another’s messaging.

If there is a common theme running through the book, it is the power of narrative.

According to Kinsella, Hamas and its allies have been remarkably successful at shaping the language through which the conflict is discussed in the West. Terms such as “colonialism,” “apartheid” and “genocide” now dominate activist discourse, particularly among younger audiences. These ideas circulate widely on social media platforms, where emotionally charged content spreads faster than verified information.

The book devotes considerable attention to misinformation and the speed at which it travels. One example Kinsella cites is the widely circulated claim that Israel had bombed the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, killing hundreds of civilians. The allegation ricocheted around the world within hours, sparking protests and diplomatic condemnations from the highest levels. Later evidence indicated the explosion was caused by a misfired rocket from Palestinian Islamic Jihad – and that the casualty figures had been exaggerated exponentially. The correction, of course, traveled neither as far nor as fast as the original claim.

Social media algorithms amplify this dynamic, Kinsella argues, pushing users toward increasingly extreme content. The phenomenon is not unique to Middle East politics. The same mechanisms drive conspiracy theories about vaccines, elections and countless other subjects. But, in the case of Israel, he suggests, the misinformation taps into something older and deeper: an antisemitic proclivity to believe the worst and most fantastical allegations about Jews.

In the contemporary context, antisemitic narratives often blend with modern ideological frameworks. In activist discourse, Jews are sometimes recast as embodiments of colonialism or “whiteness,” placing them on the oppressor side of social justice frameworks. The result, Kinsella suggests, is a rhetorical environment in which hostility toward Israel can slide easily into hostility toward Jews.

Polling data cited in the book underscores the generational divide in attitudes toward the conflict. Surveys in North America and Europe have found large numbers of younger respondents expressing sympathy for Hamas or believing that the 10/7 attacks were justified. Other polls show significant numbers of young people convinced that Israel is committing genocide. Such findings shocked even the pollsters who conducted them.

Kinsella argues that universities have played a significant role in shaping these attitudes. For decades, he writes, academic discourse has increasingly framed Israel through the lens of “settler-colonialism.” At the same time, foreign governments – particularly that of Qatar – have donated billions of dollars to Western universities.

The media also come under scrutiny. Western news organizations, he argues, routinely rely on casualty figures supplied by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, numbers that critical analysis suggests are inflated, particularly in terms of non-combatant casualties. Journalists reporting on what’s happening in Gaza frequently depend on local stringers who operate either directly under Hamas authority or in a context where anything but pro-Hamas reporting is existentially dangerous. This situation effectively grants terrorist propaganda the imprimatur of legitimate media platforms.

Because Kinsella is Canadian, The Hidden Hand is rife with Canadian content. This will be interesting to Canadian readers – and a meaningful contribution to the sad litany of incidents in this country – but it is additionally relevant because Canada has been among the worst places for these sorts of offences. Last year, an Israeli government report analyzing the problem worldwide called Canada the “champion of antisemitism.” So, while Canada may not be a major player in many of the world’s foremost competitions or concerns, when it comes to anti-Jewish discrimination, we regrettably find ourselves owning the podium. That makes what happens here – and how (or whether) we confront it – especially relevant.

The thesis of Kinsella’s book, of course, is that these problems know no boundaries (figuratively or literally).

Much of the evidence he presents is circumstantial rather than definitive. He has found no single document or intercepted communication that proves the existence of a centralized propaganda command. The accumulation of connections, coincidences and patterns is what gives the book its force, but Kinsella does not provide the proverbial smoking gun. This is partly understandable because, if there were incontrovertible proof linking ostensibly legal, legitimate activist groups in Canada and around the world with known terrorist entities, surely Western governments would have acted by now.

Ah, but there’s the rub. The very fact that someone like Kinsella, without, say, top-level security clearance, could amass such a damning catalogue of evidence begs the question of just how much effort governments and security services are devoting to this problem. That so many deeply problematic and potentially illegal cases in Canada, including here in British Columbia, have not resulted in charges or even, seemingly, any serious investigation, makes Kinsella’s book especially valuable. If there is this much smoke, where are the governmental and security agencies that are supposed to be the firefighters?

Whether one accepts all of Kinsella’s conclusions or not, The Hidden Hand forces readers to confront the possibility that the global conversation about Israel is shaped by forces far more organized and odious than many seem willing to believe.

If Hamas fights both with bombs and with words, as Kinsella argues, then the information battlefield may prove just as consequential as the physical one. And, on that battlefield, the outcome is still very much in doubt.

Personal stories, vital lessons

“In the pages of this book,” write Oga Nwobosi and Christina Myers, co-editors of Beyond Blue: Stories of Heartbreak, Healing and Hope in Postpartum Depression, “readers will find the personal stories of 26 writers who all encountered some variety of perinatal mood disorder, whether officially diagnosed at the time or identified only in retrospect many years after the fact. There is rage and sadness and tears and trauma; there is also hope and humour and healing. What these stories have in common is the vulnerability it requires to share out loud – one of the most powerful manifestations of courage.”

Nwobosi and Myers, who met in 2007 at a meet-up of new mothers facilitated by the Pacific Post Partum Support Society in Richmond, note that, while “perinatal mood disorders are better known and openly discussed today than they were then, there are still too many layers of stigma, shame, isolation and uncertainty. Many people still don’t get timely help; most don’t get any help at all.”

There is a lot to learn from reading Beyond Blue, notably that “depression,” or feeling “blue” doesn’t begin to cover the complexities of postpartum depression. It takes many forms – sadness, fear, pain, exhaustion, anger, some of the above, all the above, and so many other configurations. It’s not a matter of every woman feeling any one thing or all women experiencing the same range of emotions and physical sensations. Every instance is different, in both causes (to the extent they can be known) and effects. Every woman is different, not only in personality, but in health, social and other circumstances.

Leanne Charette, for instance, has cerebral palsy. “I pushed for many long months, trying to get apathetic, or downright ableist, doctors to help me achieve the dream of birthing children from my disabled body,” she writes. The doctors’ attitudes impacted her, of course, increasing her anxiety, among other things. She not only successfully conceived, but gave birth to twin boys.

“As my children were placed in my arms for the first time, their tiny fingers and IV tubes tangling with my own, a hypervigilance awoke alongside the all-consuming love in my heart,” writes Charette. “Sleep became impossible. For days, as we waited to be discharged from the hospital, I would hardly close my eyes, convinced my children might be taken away, starved or harmed in the space of a blink.”

Other women also write about the fear of someone, including themselves, harming their children. Sleeplessness is common, as are feelings of guilt about so many aspects of motherhood, such as having trouble during pregnancy, giving birth or breastfeeding.

Contributors talk about good and bad advice they received while struggling with postpartum depression. In a few instances, seeing a mental health professional was life-saving.

Jewish community member Kelley Korbin is one of the contributors. Her bio notes, “She is the proud mum of three thriving adults, but the early years were not easy as she experienced the shame, anxiety and confusion of postpartum depression following two of her pregnancies.” Her essay is about the first turbulent year of her son Jake’s life.

“Just half a day into motherhood I was doubting my ability to nurture,” writes Korbin. Weeks later, things were not going well. “If Jake was awake – and he was awake most of the time – he was either fitfully nursing or crying.”

Korbin mustered the courage to ask the public health nurse what she was doing wrong. “‘Colic,’ the nurse pronounced, and hastily retreated to the get-away car she had parked in the driveway. I was drowning, but she had thrown me the teeniest of life preservers,” writes Korbin. “Armed with a diagnosis, however vague, and the doggedness of my gritty pre-motherhood persona, I scoured the parenting sections of bookstores and libraries.”

What she found was that “evening colic” normally “vanishes after three months.” Even though Jake cried all day, not just at night, Korbin started the countdown. After “the promised three-month colic finish line” came and went, she took Jake back to the doctor for the “umpteenth visit.” He pronounced Jake healthy, but warned the colic wouldn’t end soon. Two months later, she started therapy. By Jake’s first birthday, “he was sleeping through the night,” and so was Korbin.

Beyond Blue should be read by anyone who’s thinking about having children, new parents, and everyone who knows someone who’s just had kids. So, basically, everyone.

A range of Jewish literature

The 41st annual Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival opens Feb. 21 with award-winning novelist John Irving and closes Feb. 26 with award-winning singer-songwriter, composer and author Peter Himmelman. In between, a range of writers and topics are presented. As always, this year’s festival fulfils its mission, as expressed by director Dana Camil Hewitt in the program: “to expose the general community to a curated snapshot of recent Jewish literature and ideas.”

While Irving, the opening author, is not Jewish, his latest novel, Queen Esther, takes readers back to the era and place of one of his most popular stories, The Cider House Rules, which was made into a movie. He focuses this time on the Winslow family, who adopt Esther Nacht from St. Cloud’s orphanage in Maine. The 14-year-old Viennese Jew was born in 1905 and came to the United States with her parents, her father dying on the voyage, her mother a few years later. Esther was left at the orphanage as a little girl, but no one had wanted to adopt a Jewish child, until the Winslows.

The Winslows are, to say the least, an unconventional family and, among other things, don’t adhere to the antisemitic attitudes of the times. The novel sheds light on Esther’s background and we witness a bit of her life with the Winslows, but then she mostly drops out of the story, returning to Europe to reconnect with her roots and then settling in Israel. The bulk of the novel centres on Jimmy, Esther’s son, born and raised in true Winslow style – unconventionally.

Truth be told, Queen Esther is not Irving’s best novel, it rambles and doesn’t quite hit the right message, but it’s written with heart and a seeming desire to counter antisemitism and change the narrative about Israel. Irving fans will enjoy reencountering some old “friends,” like St. Cloud’s Dr. Wilbur Larch, and recurring themes, including chosen family, Vienna, wrestling and sexual politics.

Irving is in conversation with Marsha Lederman Feb. 21, 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $36 ($65 with book).

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Politics and antisemitism are at the fore in Dr. Ted Rosenberg’s book Ayekha, Where Are You? Reading it will provide some healing for fellow members of the Jewish community, most of whom will know that Rosenberg resigned from the University of British Columbia’s faculty of medicine in 2024 (after a 30-year career there) because of the school’s refusal to do anything about the rampant antisemitism on campus, which escalated after Hamas’s massacre of Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023. The situation was so toxic that Rosenberg no longer felt safe.

In his resignation letter to the faculty’s dean, Dermot Kelleher – sent after other attempts to warn UBC leadership of the problems – Rosenberg wrote:

“I lament the carnage and deaths of both Israeli and Palestinian civilians during this horrific war and this seemingly insoluble and interminable complex tragedy. I also understand and appreciate the strong convictions held by people on both sides of this conflict. However, oversimplistic ahistorical demonizing narratives and rhetoric, by either side, will do nothing to deepen our understanding, empathy, respect, or trust of one another, nor hasten a resolution of this crisis.

“One third of the medical students and some faculty have publicly expressed their contempt towards me, as a Jew. I cannot take the risk of being accused of implicit harassment or racism, which is indefensible, by a ‘triggered’ student. Unfortunately, I have no faith in due process in a faculty that does not even acknowledge the existence or presence of antisemitism/Jew-hatred, or my right to work in a depoliticized environment.”

The award-winning physician, who pioneered a home-based care model for the frail elderly and still practices medicine, wrote the dean, “It deeply saddens me to end my academic career on this note.”

There are so many Jewish academics, medical professionals and others who have been similarly mistreated, both by antisemitic actions and people’s fear of dealing with antisemitism. Reading more about Rosenberg’s experiences is akin to attending a group therapy session. We not only feel less alone afterward, but come away with some knowledge that might help us in processing all that’s happened in the last almost two-and-a-half years, and in confronting the antisemitism we continue to face.

Rosenberg talks at the Vancouver JCC Feb. 22, 1:30 p.m. (tickets are $18), and at the White Rock/South Surrey JCC at 4 p.m.

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Since Oct. 7, it seems that learning more about Judaism, its tenets, its folklore, has been a common way for Jews to deal with the trauma inflicted by that day, the subsequent war and the increasingly open Jew-hatred globally. For anyone who likes graphic novels, The Writer might be an invigorating and educational salve.

Written and created by actor Josh Gad and the Berkowitz Bros. production company (founded by Ben and Max Berkowitz) with art by Ariel Olivetti and letters by Frank Cvetkovic, the four-part series stars disheveled English professor and unreliable divorced dad Stan Siegel, the writer of the series’ title, who looks a lot like Gad. Stan’s “sidekicks” are his kickass mom Liz and his daughter Izzy. They encounter all sorts of demons, dybbuks, golems and other characters out of Jewish mythology, as well as various historical figures, while Izzy also must confront current-day antisemitism and racism – harassed by classmates for being Jewish and for being Black.

The Writer is an homage to the creators’ Jewish identities, to the comic books, science fiction shows and adventure movies they loved, as well as to Gad’s Holocaust survivor grandparents and to Boston, where the Berkowitz brothers grew up. While they didn’t grow up surrounded by Jewish mysticism, they were inspired when they discovered it and it “felt like home,” notes the afterword. “This story became a way for them to celebrate that heritage – the rich tapestry of Jewish storytelling in all its forms, from Ashkenazic to Sephardic, Beta Israelite, Hispanic, Asian and beyond.”

The tapestry is so rich and deep that it is hard sometimes to follow all that’s going on in an “episode” of The Writer, but it’s a wild ride, a world that’s wonderfully and colourfully drawn, where good battles all sorts of evil and unlikely heroes prevail.

The Berkowitz brothers are at the festival Feb. 23, 7 p.m. Tickets are $18.

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Himmelman closes the book festival on Feb. 26, 8 p.m. (tickets: $25), talking about his collection of essays, Suspended By No String: A Songwriter’s Reflections on Faith, Aliveness and Wonder, with Rabbi Dan Moskovitz. It might seem odd to have a rabbi lead a conversation with a musician, composer and visual artist, but Himmelman describes his book as being about faith, and shares what went into his decision to use the word “God” in it, as opposed to, say, “spirituality,” despite concerns from several people that its use might alienate readers. Hopefully, it won’t, as there is much insight to be gained from Himmelman’s observations, insights and perspectives on wonder, loss and gratitude. His playful sketches are a delightful complement to the text.

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Also appearing at this year’s book festival are, in order of appearance, writers Carol Matas, Lihi Lapid, Aron Hirt-Manheimer, Douglas Century, Yishay Ishi Ron, Yardenne Greenspan, Sasha Senderovich, Marina Sonkina, Claire Sicherman, Danila Botha and Janet Horvath. For tickets and more information, visit jccgv.com/jewish-book-festival.

Life’s full range of emotions

Bonny Reichert will be in Vancouver on March 4 to talk about her new memoir, How to Share an Egg, as an epilogue to the JCC Jewish Book Festival, which runs Feb. 21-26. (photo by Kayla Rocca)

When Bonny Reichert was a kid, living in Edmonton, her baba, who had come to Canada as a teen on her own in the early 1900s to escape pogroms in Ukraine, would come to stay with her family for the weekend and “the house brightened,” writes Reichert in How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love and Plenty. “She arrived as though she were fleeing all over again, with parcels and packages and a giant soup pot wrapped in a tea towel, knotted to make a handle. Things were hot or cold or frozen. I didn’t know to wonder if she’d stayed up all night rolling and pinching and stuffing for us. Pekeleh, she called her bundles, little packages. Pekeleh also means burdens. Yiddish is like that.”

As with pekeleh, meaning both treats and worries, there have been many contrasts in Reichert’s life, opposite things or states of being existing simultaneously. Her memoir is fascinating for the challenges she has faced and the way in which she has dealt with them. Readers can hear the award-winning writer in conversation with Marsha Lederman on March 4, 7:30 p.m., at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, in a JCC Jewish Book Festival epilogue event.

How to Share an Egg is the telling of Reichert’s dad’s survival story – a story he so wanted her to share. Experiencing years of difficulty putting pen to paper, she approaches it through her own journey with intergenerational trauma, which she has felt deeply from childhood. Her mother grew up with “a dad who was quick to anger” and an “exacting” mother who taught there was only one way to do things. “That this was the same person who rubbed my feet as I fell asleep seemed impossible,” writes Reichert about her efforts to reconcile her beloved baba with her mother’s mother.

Reichert’s maternal grandfather, who had come to Canada in 1913, died before she was born. On her paternal side, she had no grandparents – her dad was a 17-year-old orphan when he came to Canada in 1947. His parents and five sisters were all killed in the Holocaust. He was one of the 1,123 war orphans Canadian Jewish Congress helped enter the country when the doors were only just starting to open again for Jews.

The Jewish Independent spoke with Reichert by email about her memoir.

JI: You were 9 when your dad first mentioned the possibility that you would write his story. Then there was the trip to Poland in 2015 that was a breakthrough. When did you actually write the first words and, from that point, about how long did it take for you to write How to Share an Egg?

BR: The very earliest work on the book started on that first trip to Warsaw with my dad. I took a few notes and some important photos, but I didn’t yet know where I was headed. After the second trip to Poland, in 2016, I had even more research and notes, but I still wasn’t sure I had a book. The more formal outlining and writing began in late 2020, in the depths of the pandemic. Including the time I spent waiting for my editor’s feedback and the editing, the book took about four years to write. I was earning a master’s degree at the same time.

JI: You write about your personal journey with inherited trauma, and you share some of the healing milestones on that journey. In what ways was the process of writing the book cathartic?

BR: When you write a memoir like How to Share an Egg, your job is to look at yourself very closely, but with objectivity, because the self becomes the central character of the book. In that close examination, you come to name feelings you previously couldn’t name, and evaluate experiences and situations that your younger self might not have understood. All of this leads to greater understanding and greater self-compassion. This, coupled with the relief of finding a way to write this book my dad always wanted me to write, has indeed led to healing and catharsis.

JI: What does your dad think of the book?

BR: He loves it and says that it has given new meaning to his life at 95. A wonderful outcome.

JI: One theme of How to Share an Egg is you finding your voice, being able to stick up for yourself when bullied, to be yourself in the face of others’ expectations (notably, your father’s). From where did you get the courage to be this open?

BR: You can’t decide to write a memoir and then hide from the personal. Readers want to see all of that raw emotion on the page. For the memoir to be successful, the true, honest person in the book should resonate with the true person inside the reader. At a certain point, I realized all of this, and I came to see I was writing about the universal human experience and there is no shame in being human. In other words, I practised radical self-acceptance to get the job done.

JI: You comment in the book about pekeleh meaning both bundles and burdens. Judaism is full of those instances, holding joy and sorrow at the same time. Can you speak about that, in the context of How to Share an Egg?

BR: People often hold a pretty stereotypical idea of what Holocaust survivors and their families are like – severely traumatized, loaded down with psychological and emotional problems, etc. I wanted to address that – to challenge it and expand on it. There is sorrow and trauma, of course, but there is also so much joy and gratitude and celebration. So, the book is meant to express this fuller range of emotion. Part of my decision to write it as a food memoir was to offer the reader pleasure and comfort, even against the backdrop of the Holocaust. A Jewish approach, for sure.

JI: Hedy Bohm, who you mention in your memoir, just had her own survivor memoir published by the Azrieli Foundation. What is the importance of having these stories out in the world?

BR: Yes, I’m so happy for Hedy. She is a wonderful person. Preserving these stories has always been of the utmost importance – firsthand testimony is obviously critical. I also believe a plurality of stories and approaches brings the humanity back into the unfathomable numbers and statistics.

JI: How often have you been to Vancouver, and what are you looking forward to most about your March visit?

BR: I was just there in the fall for the Vancouver Writer Fest! I have friends I’m looking forward to seeing and I’m hoping for some nice weather so I can walk and admire your beautiful city.

For the full schedule and tickets to the book festival, go to jccgv.com/jewish-book-festival.