I haven't checked the weather, but I know it is a perfect day to chat about adult Jewish literature. I'm Sheryl Stahl. Thanks for joining me here at Nice Jewish books. Well, I am a voracious reader of almost any genre. My first enduring love has been with science fiction. So I was thrilled to see this new collection. Other Covenants alternate alternate histories of the Jewish people, edited by Andrea Lobel and Mark Shainblum. I am happy to welcome the editors as well as two of the authors included in this collection, Esther Alter and Eric Choi. So welcome, everyone. And can you explain what alternate histories are?
I'll take that one. Alternate History is is a it's a genre of literature, which started primarily as a sub genre of science fiction, but isn't necessarily it's basically the what ifs of history, if the, you know, the South had won the American Civil War if Nazi Germany had God forbid, won World War Two, if, you know, Albert Einstein had become you know, you know, a professional athletes that have, you know, a physicist, any number of alternate paths it this, this genre can be both a treated as just a an offshoot of history, in which case, it's considered it's called counterfactual history, then it's sort of more than a nonfiction format. When it's fiction, then we call it alternative history. So it's it's alternate history is different from counterfactual just in that it's, it tells a story with fictional characters in a way that counterfactuals don't always.
Okay, great. So what drew you to this genre? And how did this project get started?
Well, I have a background in it. I with my friend, John, we, back in the late 1990s, we edited a previous anthology called Arrow dreams, an anthology of alternate Canadas. It was the first anthology of Canadian alternate history, there had been Canadian alternate history stories before but there had never been a single volume of original Canadian alternate history stories. So it for me, I've just been fascinated by it. And as I said, in the, in the introduction to the book, it's in my forward. I'm a child of a Holocaust survivor. And I think that has something to do with it. It's sort of almost an attempt to escape this timeline and find a timeline where my relatives survived and didn't have to, you know, endure what they endured.
Yeah, and what what ended up happening for us is that we're so as about, I would say, 15 years ago, yeah, we were sitting in a driveway during a snowstorm, a famous Montreal snowstorm, and just talking, and at some point, since we're both involved in the science fiction world, and I work as a religious studies scholar and a rabbi. And we just sort of mulled over some ideas. And one of us and as we mentioned, in the book, we don't remember who it was said, you know, we should really come up with a book of Jewish alternate histories. And the other said, Yeah, that's a great idea. And I know what the title would be Other Covenants. And that's where it was actually born. And we went through a kind of a publishing Odyssey to try to see what publishers were interested in taking it on as a project. And of course, finding authors as we think think God did, who had, you know, who could really make this into the anthology it is today. So it's a really, I think, it's, I believe it's the first anthology of its kind. Well, there have been others in the speculative fiction genre having to do with Judaism, including Wandering Stars, by Jack Dann. And there have been many stories that have been written having to do with speculative fiction and and Judaism. But this had an interesting, interesting birth pangs and an interesting origin story.
Jack Dan, the science fiction author, edited the two anthologies in the 1970s, when I was still in elementary school called Wandering Stars, and More Wandering Stars, which were the first anthologies of Jewish science fiction. And that was very, you know, very important to me as an impressionable young child. And that always stuck with me the idea that, hey, there stories about us in science fiction.
Yeah, that's great. That was an early influence for me also.
And we're just so proud to have Jack Dann in the book with an original story. And, and Robert Silverberg, who was also in that original wandering stars anthology, we're, we're just beyond, you know, happy that they both agreed to participate.
I was really amazed at the breadth and depth of the author's you were able to rope into this project. So let's kind of dive into some of the stories that I kind of detected two major themes, one was reimagining of biblical stories and one of more general historical stories with an overall theme of, of inclusion of queer inclusion and lots of inclusions. So, I was wondering, Esther, if you would like to start with your story, which is more of the biblical or creation reimaginings.
Yeah, so do you want... do you want a synopsis or
Sure. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. So I wrote the full title, I always forget the full title,
The Holy Bible of the free people of Hasmonea.
Thank you.
And
And it's, it's a, it's a clear that this, we are retelling and sort of remix of TaNaKh. So there's this elements of the TaNaKh and it's some, some bits are verbatim the same. And a lot of it is quite different. And you know, with different characters and different histories and
stuff, not to mention different gods, and different gods.
Yeah, it starts out with our gods dying. And Ashera, which, historically is the Canaanit consort of El. So Ashera ends up being the god of this alternate worlds Jews, which are called Hasmoneans, which, of course, is a play on the Hasmonean dynasty in the book Maccabee story
Right, wonderful. And so what drew you to this kind of biblical or world creation reimagining?
Well, I'm queer, and I'm transgender. And I was the thing about the TaNaKh is that you it's possible to find a queer reading of it, but it's difficult. And it's possible to derive socialist left and lessons from it, but it's not easy. So I thought, we just rewrote it, just rewrote the whole thing. That's probably a simpler task. So I wanted I wanted to write something that I could relate to these here.
Right. Itotally get it. Yeah. One of the other stories that really stood out to me, was the one And in This Quarter by D.K. Latta, which was a retelling of the David and Goliath story.
Oh, I love that one.
Would you like to talk about that one?
Well, yeah, at the risk of summarizing someone else's thing, it's yeah, the there it's the David and Goliath story, but it's a con con artist acts between with with to two gay men. And that that was great. What a What a delightful little Midrash.
That's a great way of putting it. Yeah. Yeah, it's a great, we love that story as well. It was just it grabbed us right away.
Yes. And I should mention it really, it really was a Midrash. And and I have to say that in addition to that, it was really difficult to choose 30 stories, or and poems from among the nearly 200 We received we had submissions. One was better than the other a lot of really wonderful story, but we have to decide what kind of mix we would bring in when it comes to reflecting Jewish history.
Normally, you receive far more unpublishable stories and publishable stories with an anthology. But in this case, you know, I would say close to a majority of the stuff we received was so good, we could have published it. So given even given how big this book is, it could have been a lot bigger if we'd had the room.
I usually save this question for the end. But does that mean that there's going to be more other covenants in the future?
Discussions are afoot
afoot? Yes, anything is possible but
and I thought I would mention that Larry Udallson of Ben Yehuda press this ties into your previous question is really very innovative. I mean, all cheerlead for him and for Ben Yehuda press time. I can't speak to other publishers. It's certain Ben Yehuda press is very focused on Judaism as it's becoming, not just as it is and as it has been, for as it is right now. There's a reenvisioning, including full inclusion of all kinds of voices in the Jewish community in cute including an LGBTQ plus not just issues, issues, makes it sound like a problem, just full the full spectrum of the Jewish community and what everybody brings to the table. And so Larry, and and together, other potential projects, I'm excited to, there'll be on social media or we're looking forward to announcing them.
Oh, Larry is committed to science fiction and fantasy as well. He's a big fan and he was so excited when, you know, this book went through a number of phases. And, and he, he was so excited when the book became available for him to publish. So, you know, I think you can look forward to a lot more projects of this nature from venue Hooda.
Wonderful goddess willing.
Okay, so as we mentioned that there was sort of one trend of biblical reimaginings and the other were more historical. So, Eric Choi, I'd like to bring you in. And I have to scroll down for your story, a Sky and a Heaven. So you reimagined what would have happened with the Columbia shuttle disaster. If Ilan Ramon had not been on the shuttle crew, but was instead working at ground control. So can you talk about how that came about?
I certainly can. My background is actually in aerospace engineering. So in my day job, it's, it's what I do that I work on different space projects. So in the course of my early career, back in 2003, I actually had the opportunity to go to the Kennedy Space Center to watch the landing of the Columbia mission with Ilan Ramon on it. And tragically, it did not happen. And, you know, very unwillingly, I found myself a witness to a very terrible and tragic point in history. So, I guess from from an engineer standpoint, it was always sort of the back of my head is like, well, you know, could anything had been done to save that crew to save those people, and then flash forward many years later, so 13 years later, one of the other organizations that I'm involved in is something called the International Space University. And this is an institution that's based in France, but they have a sort of educational session that takes place in a different part of the world every year. So the 2016 session took place at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. And I was very privileged to have attended part of that session, there was actually appropriately a science fiction related panel, the Arthur C Clarke panel that that I sat on. And one of the other distinguished events featured the late widow of Ilan Roman, Rona Ramon. And I was extremely touched and moved by the strength of the memory and the legacy that Ilan Ramon still has in Israel. And so those are the sort of the two initial pillars that motivated me to to write the story. And then the third one was over the course of doing research for the story, I watched the documentary by Daniel Cohen called an article of hope. And this documentary is about the real Torah scrolls that belong to Nachim Yosef who was at Bergen Belsen. Who, that that Ilan Ramon had actually brought this little sefer Torah up with him on his mission. And tragically, this was also lost in in that tragedy. So, you know, the these three things came together, and, you know, blah, blah, s&p and Mark for for this wonderful project that gave me the impetus to finally bring myself to the keyboard and bring all these ideas and thoughts and feelings together into the story.
Yeah, I remember that day also, with the the disaster and also the previous Challenger catastrophe. You know, it's just, you know, you have those landmark events that are kind of public events that just stick with you. And those are definitely two of them. I wanted to mention that the influences not only in Israel, but there's a Jewish Day School here in the LA area named after him.
Right, there's a street name for Ilan Ramon here in a suburb of Toronto and Vaughn, just just a little bit north of where I live,
and one in Montreal in the suburb of Cote St. Louis.
Oh, is that right?
Yeah.
So did you have to do a lot of research into that? Or was it just kind of part of your professional background?
I did have to do a lot of research on one of the one of the very important documents that I did look into quite deeply as part of my research was the official accident report that came out after the tragedy that investigated what happened. And a pro interestingly, as part of that report, there was an appendix where the engineers did sort of like a very quick assessment of, well, you know, from an engineering standpoint, you know, what, what might have been done, you know, in a speculative way to, to perhaps save the crew. And so, you know, I use that appendix in the official accident report as the basis for many of the technical aspects of the story. Aid, given my pressure on my profession, I'm also quite privileged to have, you know, access to, to contacts, including some of the principles, the engineers at NASA and other places that were directly involved in the mission at the time, some of the others who were involved in the recovery efforts in the in the retrieval of the debris and, and the investigation of the accident. And having said all this was I felt a lot of responsibility and a lot of sensitivity that, you know, this is something that is very tragic and very raw. And, you know, at the end of the day, what's very challenging about alternate history of this historical flavor, this historical retelling flavor of alternate history is you are dealing with real people and real historical figures. So there's so there's a huge obligation on the part of authors to be sensitive to that and to get it right,
especially since it's such recent history, and that many of the people involved are still alive and around.
All right, I just want to say, I happen to be a spaceflight enthusiast. And I really liked your story. And I learned a lot about playing changes the other day, because I was curious.
As to thank you so much. I learned from a lot from your story as well, because you know, this, I think this is one of the beauties of you know, you know, my background, you know, being not theological and and not biblical. You know, not only was this book, you know, entertaining and moving. But I frankly, from my, from my personal standpoint, I found it highly educational for myself as well. So thank you, Esther. And thank you, Mark. And thank you, Andrea,
thank you for the thank yous.
Esther and Eric, had you seen the collection before it was published?
We I think there was a PDF proof but, but honestly, I decided to just wait till I had the print volume. You know, I typically don't read that much text all at once on a screen.
Well, I, you know, had the privilege of sort of looking at sort of glimpses and teases of it over the course of time for Mark and Andrea, including, of course, some of the readings that have taken place at places like Can Con over the course of of many years. But it was actually when we finally got the contributor copy, which, by the way, this is one of the most gorgeous, one of the most physically beautiful books that I've ever been fortunate enough to hold in my hand here to actually read it from from cover to cover, as I'm doing now is, it's just such a privilege.
I'll definitely have a picture of the cover in the show notes.
Great. Thank you gratified to hear that. Yeah. Larry Udallson did such a beautiful job. You hired a fantastic artists to do the cover of the book. And it was, we were just we were just flabbergasted by how nice it was. Isaac Bialik, Isaac be our middle name is Isaac BBN.
So again, for Esther and Eric, so were there any other stories in the collection that really spoke to you?
Oh, my goodness, where do I start? You know, the, the, you know, having had a little bit very small experience myself in editing some anthologies, you know, sort of the the general practice was we try to start and end the collection with what we feel that the strongest stories and, you know, I didn't envy Mark and Andrea at this task, but it must have been stupid. But certainly the, you know, the opening story by Robert Silverberg and the closing story shuttle days by Harry Turtledove, you know, moved me deeply. You know, I did Esther's work, and I really, I felt really privileged that Alex sportsmen story, you know, completely adjacent to mine and, you know, the whole history of the Jewish Oblast and you know, during the Stalinist period, again, you know, going back to my comment earlier about how this book has not only been inspirational and and moving but but educational. And you know, this is again, a part of history that Alex illustrated that I frankly didn't know about, and now thanks to this book I do.
Eric is referring to a story called The Book of Raisa by Alex Shvartsman, which takes place in the so called Jewish autonomous Oblast of the USSR in an alternate history where Stalin lived and actually executed his the doctors plot, exile of all the Jews, Jewish residents of the Soviet Union to this Oblast in the far, far east of the Soviet Union.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Alina Adams about her book, My Mother's Secret, which took place in Birobidzan. So that was the first time I really learned about it. But I guess that even at its most Jewish, it was only maybe 15 or 20%, or
not even that much. Yeah. 6%. I heard somewhere.
So yeah, so I was surprised and pleased to see that again, it's like, Oh, I've heard of that place.
We had a second story, also set in the Jewish Oblast by Alan Dion Shapiro called Kaddish for Stalin. So that very, very different story from Book of Raisa, but set in the same place. And we did have a bit of a debate whether to have two, but we said why not? They're both good stories. And they're quite different from each other.
Yes, like, they're both wonderful stories. So it was very difficult to sort of say, well, there can't be there has to be a rule that we can include to Stalin stories, no decided they were significantly different and really quite wonderful. And just sort of pulling back a little bit, just choosing these stories was just sort of deciding where the order, which ones we should include kind of a mix of stories that skew more toward fantasy others, again, your biblical theological, and then there's the hard science fiction, as an Eric story and and finding that mix was and also the poetry as well, we have some really talented poets who contributed. And we tried to kind of create that mix, sort of spanning the gamut of Jewish history and culture, and different sort of sub genres in, in an alternate history. Yeah, we,
we were very clear at the beginning that the ethnicity of the authors mattered not at all, it was all about the stories.
We had a few authors who said, you know, I don't, I don't feel like can I contribute? I'm not Jewish. Of course, this is not about as much about the identity of the author as the, as the stories themselves and
voices
and perspectives.
Yeah, I mean, that's the same principle that I have for the podcast is that I want to look at books that have, you know, what seems like an authentic Jewish perspective, or experience, you know, but, but the author doesn't have to be Jewish.
Absolutely. And another thing I should mention is that what I found in my own kind of journey, as a religion scholar and a rabbi is that there are a lot of fellow travelers out there individuals who aren't Jewish, and who don't have a desire to convert necessarily, but who are really very, very much allies and interested in the Jewish experiences who, who don't just want to learn about it in an academic way, it really made it their business to, to feel a kinship. And perspective is is also
Alright, Andrea, you mentioned this earlier. And it was one of my questions. So about seeing these the biblical reimaginings as Midrash. So can you talk a little bit more about that in general?
Of course, I mean, for those listeners who aren't familiar with Midrash which many are I actually just define it as in some ways for my students as Jewish fanfiction.
I love that.
Ultimately, it's taking the Bible, the biblical story itself and expanding. So for example, there's a agadic Midrash, which this would be more in the family of an agadic. There's two kinds, agadic and halachic and halachic is more focused on law, I got it. Midrash is where you get the Rabba. So if you have Bereshit Rabba or Genesis Rabba, you're looking at a adadic Midrash. And what that means is that the rabbi's at various eras from late antiquity through the early medieval period would look at the biblical text and then basically riff on it and expand. So for example, I won't go too far in but just one example is, we often hear about the story of Avraham before he was Avraham destroying his father's idols, and people sometimes claimed Oh, that was in the Torah, but actually, it was not that story is in Midrash, in Bereshit Rabba, Genesis Rabba, and often, if not, most of the time. Midrash reflects the theological and sociological and communal concerns of the rabbis who are interpreting or hermeneutic the biblical texts. So in this book, Esther's story, for example, a wonderful examination of that right example of that. riffing on Genesis in a really different and novel way. That really struck me. When I read the story for the first time, I don't remember your reaction mark, but I have the same I was floored, I just thought this and Ashura. Is there? Oh, yes, this is this is fantastic. And I read it a number of times, I was just, and it has that midrashic element to it. And this kind of kind of ethereal quality to it as well, really wonderfully, plus the inclusion element. I mean, it was a was a no brainer. Yeah. But I think that that aspect of sort of looking at the Tanakh is is crucial to our understanding of ourselves within the Jewish community, even though yes, it was because that, you know, biblical culture is so crucial to our understanding of ourselves as Jews in the Jewish community and formation of identity. It was impossible to consider an anthology without including a biblical content or something that would harken back to it.
So I have a question for each of you. Do you have any projects in the works that you would like to mention,
I'm a comic book writer, as well, as a science fiction writer. I've just written the first part of a two part series called auric. Auric, a god in plastic, from Great North comics in, in here in Canada, and it's set during World War Two. And I do work in a number of World War Two and Holocaust elements into the story. So it's illustrated by Dan Day who's a great award winning comic book artist. So that's my major. I have other projects in the future, but this one is contempt is concurrent.
Alright, great. Esther, do you have any projects in the works?
Way too many? An excess of projects. I'm a software engineer by trade. So I've got a couple of software projects. I'm working on the background, I just released a video game. That's a sort of riffing on on the Pokemon games. But everything's randomized. And I have a couple of short stories I'm working on and I'm writing a biography about a Jewish socialist ancestor. That is about book length. But I haven't found a home for it yet. So I'm still researching.
Wonderful, good luck with that. Eric, what about you?
I'm looking forward to few new stories coming out this year. So just hot off the press and perhaps a gratuitous plug for a different anthology. So it's called life beyond us. This is actually another enormous tome that is put out by the European Astrobiology Institute and laksa media, which is Lucas laws imprint in Alberta. So this is a collection of stories, mostly hard SF stories about life in outer space and astrobiology. So I have the lead story in this volume. It's called Hemlock on Mars. And perhaps a bit of a tenuous connection to our discussion here is that the protagonist of that story happens to be a gay Jewish man. And later this year, I'm looking forward to another story coming out in analog, analog magazine. So it's called, beware the glob, and I will neither confirm or deny for copyright reasons whether that has any resemblance to a classic 1950s Horror fight. What what might happen if that creature were to be unleashed from its frozen Arctic slumber by climate change? And I am expecting to have a story out in an upcoming anthology called game on and this is science fiction and fantasy stories related to games. And my story is going to be called Random Access Memory. And it's about some unusual things that people experience when they start playing a certain slot machine at this casino. So some of the things that I hope to be able to share with people in the months to come.
That last one sounds, up Esther's ally also for sure. Did I get everyone? Andrea? Did you answer?
No, not yet. But I'm excited to mention I'm working on two books I am right now. And one is is an urban fantasy horror book called Fairies of Birkenau, which is about a civil war. and taking place in the underworld. And during the Shoah, but it's set in several in several times. And it's a story about a fractured family. During the show, I deal with supernatural happenings. And I'm excited to to be to be drafting that. I'm also working on a book about Jewish dating and relationships, but with a very inclusive approach, focusing in part on the LGBTQ plus community on alternate alternative relationship structures, and on matchmaking, which I think has a place and as making a comeback in liberal and unaffiliated Jewish circles. I'd like to see the return of the matchmaker. Myself, I recently had some training and matchmaking in Montreal. And I think, with the advent of a lot of kind of material, including a new show coming on Netflix, there's going to be a lot more interest in it, and relevance in the Jewish community.
I've kind of heard that in a couple places that especially now that COVID is not over, but slightly better that people are, you know, more eager to meet in person and not do everything online again.
Yeah. And I think also there's a without spending too much time on it. There's a there's a an interest in being more focused on what we want, what we don't want. And, and being very upfront about No, this is the kind of life I want to create. And are you the kind of person I can co create it with? I think there was a lot of discussion about that. I had
a general question. That there, there have certainly been a lot of Jews who write science fiction, but there really has not been a lot of Jewish content, especially in hard science fiction. There has been more in fantasy, you know, we've had angels and demons and golems and depicts, but in hard science fiction, there hasn't been a lot of Jewish content. There were the two anthologies you mentioned in the 70s. And then there's seems like there was this long gap. There were a couple that have come out in the past decade. One of them was Zions fiction about Israeli science fiction, which is a wonderful one. And there was another one and some of your some of your other contributors have done a little bit more hard science fiction Lavie Tidhar done some, but I'm wondering why you think there hasn't been Jewish experience in in science fiction shown?
Well, if I could pick that up for a second. I also, as I said, I also work in comics and comic books are an extremely Jewish business, virtually, with only the exception of like Wonder Woman and Plastic Man, virtually all the major superheroes of the Golden and Silver ages were created by Jews, and yet virtually none of those characters were openly Jewish. But, you know, the first openly Jewish superhero was created by Roy Thomas a Gentile in the 1980s. So, so I think there's a similar issue going on, I think, I think Jews, especially in the golden age of science Fiction, were kind of reluctant to wave their flag, you know, a little bit. They were, they were afraid of, of being openly Jewish in a more hostile environment, perhaps. And, and it was just also the, you know, I mean, it's, it's on record that like John W. Campbell, the editor of astounding, tried to get Isaac Asimov to change his name repeatedly. And Asimov consistently refused, but, you know, so it was a different era in that regard. But, you know, I think I think that has changed a lot in recent times. And there are Jewish authors who have written like that, you know, you know, who have written hard science fiction, but you know, they're not the majority by any means.
So, Esther, did you want to chime in?
I did. I have, I have some strong opinions about this. And if it sounds like I'm making, I don't know, a blanket statement, or we haven't done this yet, on this podcast, we haven't had a Jew making a blanket statement about other Jews. So I'm going to I'm going to do my part. And in my perception, there's there's sort of two problems like this anthology, Other Covenants is about the past. And we're very, you know, we it's relatively easy to talk about an alternate reimagining stuff that you wish past but if we loosely defined speculative fiction, or speculative fiction as as reaching out into the future, I think there are like, two innate problems one smaller than the other. And the smaller problem is that extrapolating contemporary Jewish experience in the future is often comedic. Right like that. And the basic premise of what does it mean to have Sukkot in space, which there's, so one has written a story about this, I forget exactly where it is, I think Choreo but like, that's, that's a funny premise. Right? And and it's, it's, you can lean into the humor, but it's hard to not lean into the humor. And the second is that I I just this is my blanket statement contemporary Jewish discussions about our culture, like, it's it's difficult to extrapolate extrapolate a future that isn't status quo, right? That, that we're really set on perpetuating the occupation. And we're really set on insofar as we want to revisit some, some baseline understandings to include more queer Jews, it's to include queer Jews into an existing status quo. And there are obviously many exceptions, and I, I vigorously participate in those exceptions. But I think that is the cause of why there's just not that many imaginings of a Jewish future that's substantially different than what we're presently doing.
Interesting. Okay. Eric, do you have any thoughts on that, too,
I don't really have anything to add beyond what Esther and Mark have said, except to say that I was quite intrigued by Mark's comments about sort of this hesitancy in some quarters of being openly Jewish in genre. And I wasn't aware of the story about Campbell, trying to get or convincing Asimov to to change his name. So I have the misfortune of not being Jewish, but for what it's worth, my partner is Jewish, and from her fat, well, from her family history, you know, they were Kravitz is that picked a name out of a phonebook and became Clintons. And so this, this sort of, you know, hesitancy for a long time of not being openly Jewish, and in some quarters with, you know, with certain societal pressures and prejudices, is something that seems to be quite pervasive, you know, both within and without genre. And I do hope that that's, that that is changing.
If I could add one more thing, Esther and Eric really hit the hit the, the, the nail on the head, I identified one other thing. Back when I edited the anthology of Canadian science fiction, ultimate history, Arrow dreams, which Eric was also in, by the way, I said in the introduction, that to be Canadian, and also to be Jewish means getting up in the morning, every day and deciding that you're going to be that identity. It's not like being American, or being the mainstream view, the mainstream culture, you know, no, no offense to the mainstream Christian culture, but that's being efficient water. But when you are from a smaller country, or from a smaller or outside identity, you have to make a conscious decision to maintain that and not just go with the flow. And I think that's also an issue of, you know, I mean, I sort of said, the Canadian identity and the Jewish identity, were sort of the bookends for me in the book. And, and that's, that's a commonality. I think that, you know, it's hard to imagine, you know, people used to laugh when I would talk about, you know, Canada in the future or Jews in the future, because, you know, maybe we won't survive that long. And but I also completely agree with Esther's view that there is a sort of, you know, status quo that people are reluctant to challenge, you know, group think so, yeah,
I think Canada's future is either one to be absorbed by the US, or to gradually the US is going to defect to Canada, and you will basically have absorbed us.
Oddly enough, I'm writing a comic book series where the latter happens. So
if I might just add to, to what Mark just said, I think that that decision about, you know, identity is is an important one, and it's kind of a, it might not even be that of the choice as we walk through the world as Jews as Canadians as well. But when it comes to the Jewish future, however, and the status quo I have a lot of thoughts about that. One thing I will say, though, is is the Jewish future is you know, we're kind of hurtling into it, whether we, whether we want to or not, and I had an old supervisor in the academic world once telling me that he thought the Orthodox world is one of the most rapidly evolving denominations in Judaism. And we had a discussion about that, because on the surface, you'd think all traditionalism is doesn't change. But the reality is, there have been a lot of changes even within traditionalism, for example, partnership minions. The Maharat ... ordination. Of course, there's controversy about it. But in the end, what tends to happen is that there's changed within the traditional world, there's a lot of debate and discussion and argument, and then the change. And maybe then that you have a situation where a group splinters, for example, the utj unit or traditional Judaism, and what happened there with the ordination of women in the conservative movement. But ultimately, we ended up with a lot of a lot of progressive and forward change, despite some of the challenges in agreeing, as a community. I think this is the strength or strength of Judaism, I really do I think are I like to be an optimist and say that the future of Judaism is quite bright, because we have this multi vocality in our tradition, it's baked in. It's It's part and parcel of the rabbinic tradition of the debate of hermeneutics and disagreement of, of, of just, you know, and then coming to some kind of understanding of our local multi vocality. I think that's a real strength. I think that's going to carry us into the future. Although I can't say with any certainty that's a future without splintering.
And if I may, I'm just going to insert a plug here for an upcoming book, that ... that directly addresses this called Jewish Futures, edited by Michael Burstein from fantastic books. It's, it's in process now and will be coming out, I believe, this year.
Look forward to seeing that. If people want to connect with the editors, or any of the authors in the book, what would the best way be?
Well, in order to reach us, you can reach us at othercovenants@gmail.com. This is just one string. Other covenants are names are Andrea Lobel, and Mark Shainblum. If you have any questions for our publisher, Larry Wilson has venue to press. We're happy to take them or you could just look up the address and contact him directly.
And we can forward questions or comments to any of the authors in the book.
All right, wonderful. And lastly, I'd like to give you each a little soapbox moment, moment soap box moment to mention any act of Tikkun Olam either inspired by your book or anything at all that you would like to speak on,
in the sense of tikkun olam like saving the world and like, what will I try to do this every day? You know, just, you know, you just have to do it in little ways and big ways. I tried it on the internet. I tried to be sort of like, I tried to counteract a lot of the negativity. So that's my, that's my attempt to Tikkun Olam.
Be the "untroll".
Exactly. Quite literally. That's exactly how I think about it the untroll or the anti troll?
Yes, I see something about the tradition of Musar. None of us perfect and pristine, being able to work within an understanding where our blind spots are as important, especially when it comes to important matters, like inclusion and the Jewish community of understanding that we have many voices, LGBTQ plus concerns and full, not just tolerance, tolerance is a word I have problems with is inclusion, embracing understanding that we are stronger together with different views. I think that's important and that Musar tradition, I think, also needs to that we need to sort of look at the community and and how we talk to each other. What, you know, the the idea of seeking justice, you know, we have in, in the tanach, Tsedek, Tsedek tirdof, justice, justice, shalt thou pursue. And I think it's important to seek that justice, and to call out injustice when we see it. So for example, if you see something, if you see anti trans discourse, if you see anti LGBTQ plus discourse or any kind of injustice done within the Jewish community or outside of it, racism, Islamophobia, anti semitism, of course, I think it's incumbent on us to do what we can as individuals and as communities to make the world a better place
. Thanks, Esther.
I guess my words are ending insofar as we want to imagine an alternate Judaism or a future Judaism which I think at this point, you know, hopefully we've been If so you the listener on that. We have we have to talk we'll about ending the occupation. We have to think big and imagine a beautiful Judaism where this is not something we're doing anymore. And that's
Are you referring to Israel?
Israel? Yes, Israel and Palestine. And I guess that's That's my wish for everyone listening to this is to dream big. And and imagine us doing something completely different. I mean, what, what would what would a post occupation Judaism look like? Yeah. And may we all live to see that day?
Yes, thank you,
Eric. Well, in earlier in our conversation, I talked about the the three things that inspired me to write this story. There was actually a fourth element that I didn't have a chance to include in the story. And I wish I found a way to fit it in is that on that ill fated Columbia flight, there was actually a student experiment. That was a collaboration between an Israeli Jewish student and a Palestinian student. And there was I just wasn't able to fit that, unfortunately, into that story. Maybe that's something I can do at a later time. But I also spoke about when I was in Israel in 2016, how moved I was by the legacy and the power of the memory of Ilan Ramon. And the things that have come out of that tragedy. So Rona Roman, his late widow established the nonprofit Ramon foundation for youth academic excellence and social leadership and social justice. And the documentary filmmaker, Michael Potter. He established Ilan Ramon scholarship fund that provides financial support for students. So even in the darkest of tragedies, good can come out and shine a light way forward if people want to make it so I'm in.
Wonderful. Well, thank you, all of you, Andrea Lobel, Mark Shainblum, Esther Alterr and Eric Choi for joining me to talk about this wonderful collection, other covenants, alternate histories of the Jewish people.
Thank you for having us.
Really, thank you so much.
It's been my pleasure.
If you are interested in any of the books we discussed today, you can find them at your favorite origins brick or online bookstore, or at your local library. Thanks to de Yong ki for use of his fraleigh which definitely makes me happy. This podcast is a project of the Association of Jewish libraries. And you can find more about it at WWW dot Jewish libraries.org/nice Jewish books. I would like to thank ajl and my podcast mentor Heidi Rabinowitz. Keep listening for the promo for her latest episode.
This is Sarah Sassoon, author of Shoham's bangle. I'll be joining you soon on the Book of Life podcast. I'd like to dedicate my episode to my grandparents, and all 120,000 Jews who had to leave Iraq in 1950 51 with operation as an FMEA to Israel, and also to their descendants who will continue their legacy.
The Book of Life is the sister podcast of nice Jewish books. I'm your host, Heidi Rabinowitz and my podcast about Jewish kidlet. Join me to hear my March 2023 conversation with Sarah Sassoon about Shoham's bangle at Book of Life podcast.com
