The Newsletter of Fig Tree Books

March '25: Issue #64 --- Fredric D. Price, Founder & Publisher

JEWS OF DIFFERENT HUES: Tani Prell

When I was in high school, I finally felt fully myself. Surrounded by Black people, white people, brown people and mixed people, I threw the idea of “choosing” out of my vocabulary. I could be super Italian, super Black and super proud. I’d sit in my religion classes of my Christian day school and I’d also write about Judaism whenever I could. Judaism gave me a connection to a history, community, ritual and tradition that I felt drawn to in my heart and soul.

Be’chol Lashon (Hebrew for “in every language”) celebrates and prioritizes diversity as a Jewish value by uplifting the historic and contemporary racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of the Jewish people and in doing so, strengthens the entire Jewish community.

Click on the image above to learn more about Be'chol lashon.

ESSAY: Is it the end of a Jewish Golden Age?

by Stephen Daniel Arnoff

Let’s not deny the facts. For those of us who remember 9-11, the five months after 7-10 have felt sickeningly familiar. Despite the bravery and resilience we see all around us, we are dropping down the ladder rung by rung.

Hamas’ intransigence and manipulation in dog and pony show negotiations, the hell of the hostages, the humanitarian disaster of non-combatant civilians trapped by Hamas’ ploys and Israel’s self-defense, the massive uptick in antisemitic words and acts, and – no matter where you hold politically – the reeking cynicism and incompetence of Israel’s ruling coalition all mark step after step to the bottom of the ladder.

There is a lot of apocalyptic talk online and at Shabbat tables these days about the end of days – for Israel, for the Jewish people – or at least an end of the Golden Age of the Jews as framed by a much-discussed article by Franklin Foer in the The Atlantic.

Foer’s essay is an important catalog of frightening trends. Most chilling are descriptions of antisemitic violence perpetrated by dunderheads whose false binaries of right and wrong from Berkeley to Montreal to Boston are making simply being a Jew in school – 2nd grade, 11th grade, college, medical school – a living nightmare.

NOVEL: The Midwives' Escape From Egypt to Jericho,

by Maggie Anton

Chapter One

Asenet

For that night I will go through the land of Egypt and strike down every firstborn in the

land of Egypt.—Exodus 12:12

I woke to the sounds of someone moving stealthily in the room. Light footsteps, soft but

muffled breathing. Both getting nearer. I rolled onto my side and reached out for my husband, but he was not in our bed. I was annoyed but not panicked, for he often stayed out late drinking in the spring when the weather was temperate. I took a deep breath, but the usual sweet scent of plumeria blossoms was tainted with something foul.

I sat up and looked around. The full moon sent shafts of light through the open windows

and I saw, not my husband, but his brother Maratti. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?” My voice rose with alarm. “Why aren’t you at the palace?”

Maratti squatted down beside me and whispered, “Shush. We don’t want to wake the

others.” His voice shook and he swallowed several times.

Before he could say more, I grabbed his arm. “What is wrong?”

He took a deep breath. “Something terrible has happened. Just after midnight, the guards

around me began to collapse. At first I though they were falling asleep or had been taken ill. But when I examined the nearest one, I realized he was dead.”

Q: Why and how, after over thirty years as a clinical chemist, did you become a novelist?

A: I was never one of those folks who always wanted to write a book. Yet I was a voracious reader of fiction. But after learning of Rashi’s daughters in a women’s Talmud class, I wanted to learn more about them—which led me to research about Jewish women’s lives in eleventh-century France. What I found out in five years of research was so interesting that I wanted to share it, or at least write it down so I wouldn’t forget. I decided to write the book I wanted to read, which didn’t exist yet. Since fiction was the genre I preferred, I set to work on a novel I called Rashi’s Daughters. The first draft was six hundred pages long, single spaced, so I divided it into a trilogy, one volume for each of the three daughters. When that series was successful, I wrote about another learned historical Jewish woman who intrigued me—Rav Hisda’s daughter, who lived in the Babylonian rabbinic community that created the Talmud.

ARTICLE: Finding his faith - The Mayor of Providence converts to Judaism, by Stephen Machado

PROVIDENCE — It was a mild Thursday in early October when members of the Jewish community from across the city gathered on the banks of the Seekonk River, tossing duck food pellets in the water as part of a Rosh Hashanah tradition known as Tashlikh.

The annual tradition brought together Jews from different synagogues and sects, and many noticed someone quite recognizable in their midst: Brett Smiley, the mayor of Providence.

Politicians often attend community events at synagogues, mosques, and churches. But this tradition — the ceremonial casting off of one’s sins before the new year — didn’t usually draw elected officials.

“That’s when it seemed like the rumor mill caught fire,” Smiley said in an interview with the Globe. “And when everyone said, ‘What’s the mayor doing here?’”



Indeed, Smiley, 45, who was raised going to church in a Chicago suburb, had recently converted to Judaism after about a year of study. He joined Temple Beth-El, a reform synagogue on the East Side of Providence, but had not yet shared his big life change with the wider community.

NEW BOOK RELEASE FROM FIG TREE BOOKS:

It Takes Two to Torah,

by Abigail Pogrebin and Rabbi Dov Linzer

WINNER - 2025 Independent Press Award

She is a journalist and former president of a leading Reform synagogue in New York, Central, who some years ago published a book on her personal journey through the festival calendar, My Jewish Year. He is president of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah in New York, which lies at the modern end of the Modern Orthodox family.

It Takes Two to Torah is based on their discussions, five to six pages each, on the weekly Torah portion. They met at a Jewish conference called the Conversation 15 years ago - “we started talking and haven’t stopped”, said Pogrebin. From 2018 to 2020 they did a podcast on the parashah for the Tablet magazine, an audio equivalent of chavruta, the time-honoured Jewish method of studying texts with a partner. The book is the print version of the podcast.

ABIGAIL POGREBIN is the author of My Jewish Year: 18 Holidays, One Wondering Jew—a National Jewish Book Award finalist—and Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish. She’s written for the Atlantic, the Forward, and Tablet, and moderates conversations for the Streicker Center and the Jewish Broadcasting Service. 

RABBI DOV LINZER is the President and Rosh HaYeshiva (Rabbinic Head) of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, an Orthodox rabbinical school and Torah center, which promotes a more open and inclusive Orthodoxy. He has written for the Forward, Tablet and the New York Times, published widely, and hosted highly popular Torah podcasts.

GUEST COLUMNIST: Eve Barlow, Cause and Effect

Science would decree that we are ruled by cause and effect. On October 7, it was Hamas who infiltrated Israel and undertook some of the worst crimes against humanity. But in every minute, hour, day, week, and month since October 7, 2023, it is the West who have allowed Hamas to get away with it, and who have continued to help Hamas commit heinous atrocities against the people of Israel and the worldwide Jewish community.

Every artist who signed a letter for “ceasefire”, every Susan Sarandon, Mark Ruffalo, Kristen Stewart, Tilda Swinton, Billie Eilish and Andrew Garfield. Every BBC and Guardian journalist, Pulitzer Prizes and all. Every single person who works for MSNBC. Everyone who identifies proudly as a “human rights lawyer”, waltzing about Geneva at the Hague for Instagram followers. Every Sally Rooney and every author and poet who signed her boycott of Jewish authors and publishers. Every single politician in the offices of Ireland, the UK, Spain, Canada, Austrlia and beyond who voted to recognize a state of Palestine. Every Dean of every elite university who allowed pro Palestine encampments to overtake once relevant and respected educational institutions. Every person on the payroll of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and beyond. The entire hollow carcass that is the United Nations. Each and every one, sleeping soundly in their beds, turning their gaze from Gaza. No eyes on the real Khan Younis. Why would they look? They merely do what they’re told. They are just following orders.

Cause and effect.

Eve Barlow is an LA-based music and pop culture journalist. She previously served as Deputy Editor of the New Musical Express(NME) and currently contributes to New York Magazine, TheGuardian, Billboard, LA Times, Pitchfork, and GQ, among other publications. Barlow is also an outspoken voice on Jewish identity,Zionism, and fighting antisemitism on social media, and has also shared her views in publications such as Tablet. Barlow was also named one of The Algemeiner’s Top 100 People Positively InfluencingJewish Life in both 2020 and 2021. She is the creator of Blacklisted, a Substack newsletter.

ARTICLE: How a Jewish teen’s description of New York

life in 1945 is going viral on TikTok

Charlotte Buchsbaum, who grew up in Brooklyn, wrote about going to bar mitzvahs, celebrating Passover and cheering the US victory over Japan. Now she has an audience of millions



These musings by a Jewish high schooler, which reflect happenings both highly personal and historically significant, have recently found a contemporary audience of millions. This unlikely turn of events is thanks to a viral TikTok video posted by Helaina Ferraioli, the social media manager for her family’s vintage store in Carroll Gardens.



Ferraioli had found Buchsbaum’s diary in 2019, but she read just a few pages of the journal before putting it away on her bookshelf. Last month, however, while recovering from a running injury, Ferraioli rediscovered Buchsbaum’s journal, and realized the historical significance of her documented experience of the end of World War II. And so, Ferraioli posted her first TikTok about Buchsbaum’s diary — one of six — on Nov. 21. It has since been viewed more than 3 million times.

ESSAY: Why I won't teach at Columbia, by Deborah Lipstadt

Until last week, I had been seriously considering teaching at Columbia University next year as a visiting professor. But I’m now convinced that to do so would be folly—to serve as a prop or a fig leaf. Moreover, I feel doing so would mean putting myself and my students at risk.

I have spent most of my professional career on American campuses, teaching courses on religion and history. I took a brief break to serve in the Biden administration as the United States’ Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism from May 2022 to January 2025.

It was from that perch that I watched the alarming unraveling of campuses that claimed to be dedicated to the pursuit of truth transform themselves into places where basic morality had been inverted. Following Hamas’s attack of October 7, 2023, things went from bad to worse.

These outrages began while I was working as a diplomat and State Department employee, and I was enjoined from involving myself in domestic matters. But I watched—often with horror—as university administrations coddled anti-Israel protesters who broke university regulations, harassed other students, and prevented the normal learning process from proceeding.