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.

Passover and the diversity of diversity...

... and why it can be a challenge to please everyone (plus a bit more about the book I’m writing).

I originally wrote this post last year. In one week, the Jewish festival of Pesach (Passover) begins, so it's a good time to share this post again with a few minor changes. 

This post of mine is based on a comment I made in a Facebook group (for bloggers and authors) in February 2018. We were discussing Lionel Shriver’s article in The Guardian (you can read the Guardian article here), which raised many questions within the group:

• Should we only write about the life we know?
• Or should we feel comfortable writing about a life we don’t know?
• Should we write about topics we haven’t experienced - and may never experience?
• Or should we only write about topics we have experienced?

I'm writing Jewish-themed crime fiction. I've never committed a murder (you'll be pleased to know), but I do keep many of the Jewish traditions and live in a Jewish area, so to some degree I am writing about what I know. Yet this doesn't make writing a novel any easier. I still need engaging characters, a great plot and a believable setting (and I'm working hard on those, if anyone's interested). It also brings up other challenges for me, as I'm explaining concepts and practices I take for granted to people who know nothing (or very little) about the religion. I'm not ready to share any details about my plot, but my main character is a journalist who is learning about the religion as she investigates some possible crimes - which helps to take the reader on a journey of discovery too.

Many people show interest when I tell them what I'm writing. Comments include:

• 'Jewish-themed crime fiction is definitely something different.'
• 'I don't know much about Judaism so would love to learn more.'
• 'Get on and write it - I can't wait to read it.'

Judaism in the UK

Jews make up only 0.5% of the UK's religious groups - much less than Christians, those with no religion, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs in the chart. It often surprises people when I tell them this fact, as Jews seem so prominent within society and we are not considered by many to be an ethnic or religious 'minority group'.

In February 2019, a DNA analysis by My Heritage revealed that I am 97.5% Ashkenazi Jewish and 2.5% Middle Eastern. Who says being Jewish isn't in the blood or an ethnic group? Bizarrely, the test revealed that I have a very close DNA match with a 90-year-old woman (and her family) with a surname that's very similar to one of my great-grandparents' surnames - not a common surname at all.

Many people tell me they've never met anyone Jewish before - yet, how would they know, as we look and behave like everyone else. Ignorance breeds antisemitism and racism - this is something that needs to be addressed and one of the reasons I'm writing this book. 

My book begins with an antisemitic attack by two teenagers against a Jewish woman. Most people don't realise how much antisemitism occurs in the UK and that it is on the rise, as the incidents often don't make the national news. According to the Campaign Against Antisemitism, one in three British Jews has considered leaving Britain in the past two years due to antisemitism, with concern mounting over failures to tackle antisemitic crime and antisemitism in politics. Universities throughout the country are now a breeding ground for anti-Israel and antisemitic behaviour. According to the Community Security Trust, there were 1,382 antisemitic incidents recorded nationwide in 2017 - a record level in the UK.

Diversity within Judaism
The Facebook group discussion moved on to the concept of diversity and whether it's possible to write books that appeal to diverse readers if you're not part of that group yourself. My point was that it will always be difficult to please everyone but you do have to make sure your book is well researched - and others in the discussion agreed.

Just as there is diversity in the country as a whole, there is diversity within all communities and there isn't (or shouldn't be) such thing as a stereotype. The Jewish population in the UK is an example of this. You have the ultra-religious communities, who may dress and behave in a particular way (and are most easily identified as being Jewish). You may see them in parts of London, Greater London and Manchester, for example. Then you have the non-observant Jews, who don't keep any of the traditions, but are still Jewish because it's in their blood and are proud of their Jewish heritage. And then you have everyone else in between.

My book is set in a fictional town based on where I live, with some more observant Jewish families and some who keep very little of their religion but still identify themselves as being Jewish. Despite living in a fairly Jewish area, many people around here (including us) have experienced antisemitism (some openly, some disguised and some completely shocking).

Next weekend, the Jewish festival of Pesach (Passover) begins. This is one of the most commonly observed festivals, even by many people who are otherwise normally non-observant. But as with all diverse groups, everyone keeps the festival in their own way - so I'll use this as an example. It's one reason why I've been busy recently and will be for another couple of weeks.

Some Jewish people observe all of the 'rules' and others observe very few - and some in between. Even where I live, members of our Synagogue observe it in different ways, at different levels of religiosity. This is a clear example of diversity within one Jewish community.

What is Pesach?
Pesach, which lasts for eight days, commemorates the exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. The name Pesach (Passover) comes from the miracle when God passed over the houses of the Israelites during the 10th plague  - 'Death of the First Born'. The festival has many different features. It's too complicated to explain in detail, but here's a relatively short summary:

1. We eat special foods. We eat matzah (unleavened bread) rather than bread, reminding us that the Israelites didn't have time to let their bread rise when they left Egypt in a hurry. Matzah is made from flour and water and cooked very quickly. It's flat, like a cracker. I can't say I'm a great fan of it - I think of it as edible cardboard - but other people (including my husband and Dad) like it! Pesach is more complicated than just eating Matzah though, as all of our food (other than fruit, vegetables, meat/poultry and fish) has to be specially made for Pesach - even down to cooking oil, tins of tuna, dairy foods, crisps and chocolate (no Easter eggs!) - to ensure it hasn't been in contact with bread and chametz - see point 2). Some people will just avoid bread and eat matzah during Pesach but won't change any of the other foods they eat. Everyone keeps Pesach in a way that suits them.

2. We prepare for Pesach with the ultimate spring clean. We clear our house of bread and other foods (known as chametz - pronounce the 'ch' as in the Scottish 'loch') before Pesach begins. During Pesach, we can't eat pasta, rice, barley and legumes. We use different crockery, cutlery, pots and pans for those eight days, sealing up our kitchen cupboards (so we don't use our 'normal' items) or swapping them around (our Pesach items are stored in boxes in our garage and loft during the rest of the year). We cover all the kitchen surfaces. It's a bit like moving house (or at least, kitchen), with all the preparations beforehand. And yes, it can be stressful (okay, a nightmare).

3. We have a special family meal on the first two nights. It's called a Seder, which means 'order', because the meal has a special order that we follow, with specific traditional foods (such as parsley dipped in salt water to symbolise tears shed in slavery and raw horseradish to symbolise the bitterness of slavery). The Seder details, and the story of Pesach, are written in a special book called a Haggadah. Some families only do one Seder on the first night - we do both nights.

During the Seder, we sing songs and have discussions. Frogs may be dotted around the table (not real ones, I should add) - as frogs feature in the second plague.

Two years ago, we had the parting of the Red Sea down the centre of our Seder table - thanks to blue crepe paper, sand-coloured felt, fish stickers, shell-shaped sequins and Playmobil figures (Egyptians and builders etc). I think I enjoyed making it far more than my teenagers enjoyed seeing it. We even have a big Playmobil pyramid stored in the loft from when my boys were younger.

Pesach has many different themes and we do try to relate them to the 'here and now'. One of these is the theme of modern slavery (and not just the obvious - think about how enslaved we are to technology and social media). Then there's the theme of refugee status - as currently seen in Syria. Then finally the theme of antisemitism, which returns to my book. Just as the Jews were persecuted by Pharaoh then, they have been persecuted ever since, with the Holocaust and modern day antisemitic attacks.

So should we be free to write about lives different to our own?
I know that if I do get my novel published, it may come under a lot of scrutiny and I may be more open to antisemitism - I've already experienced antisemitic behaviour on social media, in response to a tweet about Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yes, this does worry me, but I know that I'll rise above it and have a strong support network of people around me.

But I may not only attract criticism from the wider population, and in some ways this worries me more, turning writing this book into more of a challenge to get it right. And this is probably the reason why I've been dragging my feet (or my typing fingers, in this case). As already mentioned above, the Jewish community is diverse. So my personal experience of Judaism probably won't be the same as someone else's. The Jewish characters in my book are also diverse, from a Jewish community like my own.

Some Jewish people may disagree with the content of my book if it's ever 'out there', because it's too Jewish, not Jewish enough, tells too much, tells too little, 'we don't do it like that', gives us a bad name... and 'you can't have anyone Jewish committing a crime'. Others may say it's great as it highlights antisemitism, shows that we're like everyone else, raises awareness of Judaism etc - which is exactly what I'm trying to do.

I don't think there's any way to 'win' in terms of writing about diverse groups of people, even if we're part of the community ourselves. When we read books, they touch us in many different ways, based on our nature and nurture, our upbringing, our past experiences, our present situation. No two readers will read a book in the same way or respond to it in the same way.

And that’s the beauty of reading - and writing.

Ultimately, we should be free to write (and read) about what excites us, what motivates us, what challenges us and what drives us.

For me, it's crime fiction with a Jewish theme. 

Watch this space!

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.