Outside looking in - a 2019 Chanukah update

It's that time of year again, when pre-Christmas celebrations fill up my social media feeds. This year, Chanukah starts on 22nd December and lasts for eight days, so it 'clashes' with Christmas Day (two years ago, it started on Christmas Eve). We won't have a Christmas tree, but we will have a lit menorah and other Chanukah goodies. I originally wrote this post two years ago. But it seems relevant to post it again - with yet another update.

Christmas: Outside looking in

At this time of year I sometimes feel like a trespasser. A ghostly apparition peering through a smudged window into a tinsel-draped world I'm not really part of.

On the outside looking in. 

Here, but not here.

I watch the fervent build up and read frantic discussions on social media from the sidelines. Present buying. Christmas trees. Delicious festive treats. Large family meals. I don't join in, but that doesn't mean I don't understand your stress and excitement. I have my fair share during the year, with the weekly Jewish Sabbath and several Jewish festivals (with a strong focus on food!).

I've never celebrated Christmas. 

During my childhood, December 25th was simply a family day with a large lunch, as there was little else to do. No Christmas tree. No presents. No Christmas pudding. We would still eat turkey though, along with home-made stuffing, brussels sprouts and minced pies. I remember Christmas crackers on the table and watching festive TV. After all, that's what everyone did at 'this time of year'.

I knew all about Christmas, don't get me wrong. I had plenty of friends who celebrated it - non-Jewish ones and Jewish ones - and I didn't go to a Jewish school. I didn't take part in the annual Nativity play but would watch the rehearsals from the sidelines, learning the songs and the lines, just as I watch the build up to Christmas now. I didn't go to the school carol services either (we had a day off instead - shopping or cinema, if I remember right, though we were probably meant to do school work(!)). Yet I knew all of the carols anyway.

I guess not much has changed.

For me, this time of year has always been about Chanukah (Hanukkah), the Jewish festival of lights, which lasts for eight days. A festival of miracles and hope and joy. Unlike Christmas, Chanukah doesn't occur on a set date each year, as it's determined by the Hebrew calendar. One year, it may be in November, and the next year in December. This year it begins on 22nd December as soon as darkness falls.

In keeping with tradition, each night we will light candles on a nine-branched Menorah (also called a Chanukiah), an extra candle each night (with the ninth candle called a Shamash (helper) to light the others).

So one candle on the first night, two on the second and so on, until all eight candles are twinkling in a row. The candles symbolise a miracle in the second century BCE, when a handful of Jews defeated the Greeks to reclaim back their Holy Land and rededicated the Second Temple in Jerusalem. When they wanted to light the Temple's Menorah, there was only enough oil for one day - yet miraculously the oil lasted for eight days, known as the miracle of Chanukah.

There's a whole Rugrats episode devoted to this!

At Chanukah, it's traditional to eat fried foods - especially doughnuts (donuts) and latkes (fried potato pancakes like rosti) - and to play a game with a dreidel (a four-sided spinning top) for coins, nuts or chocolate.

We can buy Chanukah biscuits (including candle or dreidel shaped ones).

Chanukah is often associated with presents, but that's not a Jewish tradition so I assume it's down to the influence of Christmas over the generations. We give money called Chanukah gelt (or chocolate coins) to children, as well as to charity. You can now buy Chanukah decorations, as sparkly as the Christmas ones, and lots of crazy Chanukah-themed items.

Even Chanukah socks last year (no, I didn't buy them).

As a child, I would receive one Chanukah present each night (some small, some large), as did my two boys when they were younger. Now they are teenagers, the eight-present tradition has faded away in our house. But not the candle lighting - never that.

Chanukah is also a time for community, with activities and celebrations at our synagogue. Last year we had our second interfaith event with the local church - our rabbi lit a large menorah as the vicar beside him switched on the Christmas tree lights. There were Jewish songs and carol singers, and mulled wine and minced pies and kosher donuts for the children. This year, it's a little different due to the timing, as the Christmas lights are already lit. But our synagogue is still doing a communal Chanukah lighting, encouraging people of all faiths to come along.

Some people worry they'll offend me if they wish me Happy Christmas. But not at all. 

When I say I'm on the outside looking in, I don't mean this in a negative way. I enjoy watching friends building up to their big event of the year - my Twitter and Facebook feeds are filled with that positivity. After the last few years of world politics, the election this week (and Brexit (currently still) on the horizon), we all need plenty of that.

People who know I'm writing fiction often ask me what I'm writing. 

I used to be suitably vague and didn't say much about what I'm doing or what stage I'm at. But last year, I was more open about the fact that I'm writing Jewish-themed crime fiction, set in a fictional multi-cultural town in Hertfordshire, UK. I'm very open about my Jewish heritage and proud of it too. My book happens to be set at this time of year - Chanukah and Christmas season.

I finished my novel, The Redeemer, earlier this year. Here's the blurb:

‘REPENT BEFORE YOU DIE … OR MAY YOU NEVER R.I.P.’

Threatening plaques, vigilante killings, a Jewish community - what’s the link? 

The clock is ticking to the next murder.

After journalist Shanna Regan witnesses an antisemitic incident in Hillsbury, a small Hertfordshire town, she uncovers a series of threatening fake commemorative plaques. Each plaque highlights someone’s misdemeanour rather than a good deed. Delving deeper, she realises these plaques are linked to vigilante killings spanning several decades, with ties to the local Jewish community. As her search for the truth becomes personal, she puts her own life in danger. 

Can she stop the next murder in time? 

I was first runner up (honourable mention) in the DHH Literary Agency New Voices Award at the end of September 2019, as announced at the Capital Crime festival's opening night party. I've had great feedback on my novel and I'm now looking for an agent - the right agent - or a publisher.

I'm hoping that one day you'll get a chance to read my novel (if you want to!) and learn more about Jewish traditions, the worrying rise of anti-semitism in the UK (what it's like to experience it for real 'on the frontline', not what you read in the newspapers) and the huge sense of family and community spirit that I know so well.

2019 has also been exciting on the work front. In January, I launched my own work website (finally). You can visit it here. I also started proofreading for publishers - including Orenda Books - and individual authors, and I added several magazines and websites to my health writing portfolio.

I was one of Jewish Book Week 2019's official blog partners and hope to do the same in 2020.

Thank you for reading to the end of this non-bookish post and for supporting Off-the-Shelf Books, which turns five on 30th December 2019. I'm very behind with reviews, but hope to catch up soon - it's been a particularly busy few months.

I wish you all a Happy Christmas, Happy Chanukah or whatever you're celebrating within the next few weeks. And a Happy New Year too.

My Jewish-themed Reads Part 1 - #JBW2019

This year, I'm an official book blog partner of Jewish Book Week in London (2 to 10 March 2019), so I've made it my mission to read more Jewish-themed books throughout 2019.

Booking for the 85+ events during Jewish Book Week opened on Wednesday 9th January. Visit the website - http://jewishbookweek.com - for more details. I'll be coming along to three events taking place on Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th March. Hopefully I'll do some live tweeting while I'm there and also write a summary post on Off-the-Shelf Books afterwards.

So which Jewish-themed books have I read so far?

Bitter by Francesca Jakobi
Published by W&N in October 2018

Bitter by Francesca Jakobi was the first Jewish-themed book I read with Jewish Book Week in mind. At 12 pm on Sunday 3rd March 2019, at Kings Place, London, Francesca will be talking about the perils and pitfalls of fictionalising a family story. Bitter was inspired by her grandmother, who was sued for divorce in the 1940s.

Publisher's description

It's 1969, and while the summer of love lingers in London, Gilda is consumed by the mistakes of her past. She walked out on her beloved son Reuben when he was just a boy and fears he will never forgive her. When Reuben marries Alice, he seems transformed by love - a love Gilda has craved his entire adult life. What does his new wife have that she doesn't? And how far will she go to find out? It's an obsession that will bring shocking truths about the past to light . . .

My verdict

This is a bittersweet character-led tale of a mother's obsessive love for her son and her resulting jealousy for her new daughter-in-law. It's beautifully written and emotionally tense, with poignant insights into Jewish family life and the period between the Second World War and the late 1960s. Filled with secrets from the past, the story manages to be both sinister and moving at the same time. Gilda's acerbic voice got right under my skin, eventually worming its way into my heart, as understanding her past helped me to understand her present. The book chilled me, gripped me and entertained me - an unforgettable character and story.

To book a ticket for Francesca's Jewish Book Week event, click here.

The Emperor of Shoes by Spencer Wise 
Published in hardback by No Exit Press in July 2018 - paperback being published in April 2019

Publisher's description

Alex Cohen, a twenty-six-year-old Jewish Bostonian, is living in southern China, where his father runs their family-owned shoe factory. Alex reluctantly assumes the helm of the company, but as he explores the plant's vast floors and assembly lines, he comes to a grim realisation: employees are exploited, regulatory systems are corrupt and Alex's own father is engaging in bribes to protect the bottom line. When Alex meets a seamstress named Ivy, his sympathies begin to shift. She is an embedded organiser of a pro-democratic Chinese party, secretly sowing dissonance among her fellow labourers. Will Alex remain loyal to his father and his heritage? Or will the sparks of revolution ignite?

My verdict
The Emperor of Shoes is a fascinating blend of Jewish and Chinese cultures, with a focus on contemporary social and political themes at a time of vast change and revolution. It's also a love story and an exploration of difficult father-son relationships, portrayed through emotional scenes and Yiddish humour. Vivid descriptions transported me to contemporary Southern China. I felt as though I was there alongside the characters, seeing, hearing, smelling and feeling the contrast between the hustle and bustle of city life and the tranquility of the rural areas. This book is a thought-provoking exploration of the working conditions in Chinese factories, communism versus capitalism and Jewish identity.


Invisible City & Run You Down by Julia Dahl
Invisible City was published by Faber on 31 July 2018.
Run You Down was published by Faber on 1 January 2019.

Publisher's description: Invisible City

Fresh out of journalism school, Rebekah Roberts is working for the New York Tribune, trying to make a name for herself. Assigned a story about the murder of a woman in Brooklyn, Rebekah finds a case from inside a closed, secretive Hasidic Jewish community - the same Brooklyn neighbourhood her estranged mother was brought up in.

Shocked to discover that the victim is set to be buried without an autopsy, Rebekah knows there is a story to uncover, but getting to the truth won't be easy - in the cloistered world her mother rebelled against, it's clear she's not welcome, and everyone she meets has a secret to keep, most of all from an outsider.

Publisher's description: Run You Down

Aviva Kagan was just a teenager when she left her Hasidic Jewish life in Brooklyn for a fling with a smiling college boy from Florida. A few months later she was pregnant, engaged to be married and trapped in a life she never imagined. So, shortly after the birth of her daughter she disappeared.

Twenty-three years later, the child she walked away from, NYC tabloid reporter Rebekah Roberts, wants nothing to do with her. But when a man from the ultra-Orthodox enclave of Roseville, NY contacts Rebekah about his young wife's mysterious death, she is drawn into Aviva's old world, and a hidden culture full of dangerous secrets and frustrations.

My verdict
Invisible City and Run You Down are the first two books in a crime fiction series featuring reporter Rebekah Roberts. I read Invisible City in the summer and Run You Down in the last few weeks. Both books are set within the Ultra-Orthodox Hassidic Jewish communities in Brooklyn, where Rebekah freelances for the local tabloid newspaper. Rebekah's mother Aviva was brought up within this community, rebelled, became pregnant and then returned to them (leaving Rebekah with her father). This helps to introduce religious Jewish culture, as Rebekah learns more about the traditions and her own heritage during her investigations. Both books are thought provoking, covering social issues and contemporary themes, including diversity, race and religion, gun control, white supremacy, acceptance, racism and anti-semitism. They are also bittersweet stories of family relationships and self-discovery. 

So that's it for now! But I have many more Jewish-themed books on my list and will reading (and reviewing) them over the coming year. So do pop back to Off-the-Shelf Books for more updates!

BEST OF CRIME with Julia Dahl

Welcome to my latest BEST OF CRIME feature, looking at crime writers' top picks, from their favourite author and fictional detective to their best writing tip. 

Today I'm delighted to welcome 

JULIA DAHL

to share her BEST OF CRIME ...

... AUTHORS

It feels impossible to pick a favorite among so many, but I suppose if I had to take the books of just one crime author to a deserted island it would probably be Patricia Highsmith. She is an absolute master of menace. The sun is shining in paradise, everyone dresses for dinner, but the ugliness beneath the surface casts a pall over everything.

... FILMS/MOVIES

My lifelong love affair with the Coen Brothers began in 1996 with Fargo. It’s a wickedly funny, twisted drama about a kidnapping gone wrong in the frozen tundra of America’s upper Midwest. Joel and Ethan Coen have an uncanny ability to inhabit and illuminate subcultures that has you rooting for everyone, even the most depraved career criminal.

... TV DRAMAS

Soon after I moved to New York the HBO series Six Feet Under premiered. It’s the story of a family in Los Angeles that runs a funeral home and at the beginning of each episode, we watch someone (whom the family will later bury) die. It wasn’t a crime show, per se, but death was an integral part of the fabric of the character’s lives. That darkness permeated their psyches and affected them in endlessly fascinating ways.

... FICTIONAL DETECTIVES

Jessica Fletcher of Murder, She Wrote. I started watching this television show as a pre-teen and decided my life goal was to be Jessica: a crime novelist/amateur sleuth. I haven’t solved any murders yet, but maybe it’s just a matter of time. Jessica (otherwise known by her nom de plume, J.B. Fletcher) was a feminist hero. She was a widow with a booming career (an apartment in Manhattan and a house in Maine? Unheard of!), a generous heart, and a spot-on bullshit detector. The first gift my husband gave me when we started dating was a book in the Murder, She Wrote series – I knew I’d found “the one.”

... DEATH SCENE 

I have to go back to Fargo for this, too. At the end of the film, the character played by Steve Buscemi meets his end…inside a wood chipper.

... BLOGS/WEBSITES

Local newspapers are where I go to learn about contemporary crime. These days, there are around 17,000 homicides in the U.S. each year, and much as I love the New York Times, the paper of record doesn’t cover more than a handful. If you want to know who is killing who and how justice is – or isn’t – meted out, you need to read the Fresno Bee, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Arizona Sun. 

... WRITING TIPS

I’ve read that there are two kinds of writers: those who plan, and those who run to the end. I am the latter. I want to get the skeleton of the book as fast as I can so that I have a solid structure to work with. If I’m writing a scene that I know needs details I don’t have at the moment, I use the journalistic notation “TK” (meaning, to come) and skip ahead. Getting caught up on small things can slow your progress.

About JULIA DAHL

Julia Dahl is the author of three novels about a New York City crime reporter: INVISIBLE CITY, RUN YOU DOWN, and CONVICTION. After 20 years as a reporter and editor, she now teaches journalism at NYU.

Find Julia Dahl on Twitter - @juliadahl

About RUN YOU DOWN

Publisher's description

Aviva Kagan was just a teenager when she left her Hasidic Jewish life in Brooklyn for a fling with a smiling college boy from Florida. A few months later she was pregnant, engaged to be married and trapped in a life she never imagined. So, shortly after the birth of her daughter she disappeared.

Twenty-three years later, the child she walked away from, NYC tabloid reporter Rebekah Roberts, wants nothing to do with her. But when a man from the ultra-Orthodox enclave of Roseville, NY contacts Rebekah about his young wife’s mysterious death, she is drawn into Aviva’s old world, and a hidden culture full of dangerous secrets and frustrations.

Run You Down was published in paperback by Faber & Faber on 1 January 2019

Look out for more BEST OF CRIME features coming soon.

Click here to read more BEST OF CRIME features.

Did you follow the Blog Tour?

Author catch up: Julia Dahl

I was excited and intrigued when I first discovered the existence of Julia Dahl's US-based Jewish-themed crime fiction (particularly as my own Work In Progress (WIP) is UK-based Jewish-themed crime fiction). I bought and read Invisible City in the summer and was then delighted to receive Run You Down from Faber. Here's my Author Catch up with a double review, for the Run You Down Blog Tour.

Invisible City and Run You Down are the first two books in a crime fiction series featuring reporter Rebekah Roberts. Both books are set within the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn, where Rebekah freelances for the local tabloid newspaper. The third book, which I haven't yet read, is called Conviction.

Invisible City: Publisher's description

Fresh out of journalism school, Rebekah Roberts is working for the New York Tribune, trying to make a name for herself. Assigned a story about the murder of a woman in Brooklyn, Rebekah finds a case from inside a closed, secretive Hasidic Jewish community - the same Brooklyn neighbourhood her estranged mother was brought up in.

Shocked to discover that the victim is set to be buried without an autopsy, Rebekah knows there is a story to uncover, but getting to the truth won't be easy - in the cloistered world her mother rebelled against, it's clear she's not welcome, and everyone she meets has a secret to keep, most of all from an outsider.

Run You Down: Publisher's description

Aviva Kagan was just a teenager when she left her Hasidic Jewish life in Brooklyn for a fling with a smiling college boy from Florida. A few months later she was pregnant, engaged to be married and trapped in a life she never imagined. So, shortly after the birth of her daughter she disappeared.

Twenty-three years later, the child she walked away from, NYC tabloid reporter Rebekah Roberts, wants nothing to do with her. But when a man from the ultra-Orthodox enclave of Roseville, NY contacts Rebekah about his young wife's mysterious death, she is drawn into Aviva's old world, and a hidden culture full of dangerous secrets and frustrations.

My verdict of both books
Both books provide a fascinating insight into the Ultra-Orthodox Hassidic (Chasidic - if you are in the UK) Jewish communities, which often remain an enigma to outsiders. Julia Dahl gets right into the heart of the problems that Jewish families (and individuals) face from within their own community as well as the outside world. In particular, she focuses on the darker side - what happens when some people choose to escape what they feel is a restrictive religious lifestyle and how the community closes ranks when necessary (for example, in cases of murder or abuse). Her books prove that there is just as much diversity within these communities as there is within the rest of the world (Jewish or otherwise) - helping to break down religious stereotyping.

In Invisible City, Rebekah Roberts is dragged into an investigation within the local Hassidic community when a young mother is murdered. At the same time, she's wondering what happened to her own mother Aviva, who was brought up within this community, rebelled, became pregnant and then returned to them (leaving Rebekah with her father). The book is an interesting whodunnit, with a twisty, multi-layered plot. It provides an introduction to the secret world of the Hassidic community, as Rebekah learns more about Jewish traditions and her own heritage during her investigations.

Run You Down follows almost straight on from Invisible City. Rebekah is investigating the supposed suicide of a young woman. The husband believes instead that it was murder. But due to the Jewish tradition of burying bodies within 24 hours of a death and the Hassidic community not wanting to seek attention, the family refuses an autopsy and investigation. The narrative switches between Rebekah and Aviva, providing an insight into why Rebekah's mother left the religious community - and then returned to it. At first, Aviva's story of the past seems to break up Rebekah's investigation in the present, but it gradually becomes clear that there is a link between the two. The pace ramps up in the second half in particular, culminating in a dramatic conclusion.

Invisible City and Run You Down are both thought-provoking crime novels that cover social issues and contemporary themes, including diversity, race and religion, gun control, white supremacy, acceptance, racism and anti-semitism. They are also bittersweet stories of family relationships and self-discovery. Protagonist Rebekah is a well-rounded, likeable character. As a journalist, she's determined to find a publishable story, whatever it takes. But with personal connections to the Jewish community, she also has to maintain empathy and sensitivity towards the people she's investigating - just as Julia Dahl has done in writing these multi-layered books. The stories feel believable and very real, emotional and poignant as well as gripping and compelling.

I look forward to reading Conviction to see how the series moves forward, develops and grows along with its main characters.

Invisible City was published by Faber on 31 July 2018.
Run You Down was published by Faber on 1 January 2019.