The Newsletter of Fig Tree Books

June 2024: Issue #55 --- Fredric D. Price, Founder & Publisher

SHORT STORY: Never Again, by Howard Jay Smith

Growing up in NYC in the '50's & 60's, was to live in the shadow of the Holocaust which saw the entirety of our European family, save one, murdered. How, I wondered as a writer, does a Jew survive in an essentially hostile world? That question is a recurring theme in my novels. Over the decades however, that concern appeared to have little urgency as the specter of antisemitism seemed to have faded in a very secular America - until this past October. The assault by Hamas was akin to many of the pogroms that have plagued we Jews throughout our history. The renewed and extreme rise of antisemitism since the attack, reminds me of the ever-present need to remember the past and to learn from it, as in NEVER AGAIN, VIENNA, a short story adapted from my novel, MEETING MOZART: FROM THE SECRET DIARIES OF LORENZO DA PONTE, amzn.to/2P9Xfzu.

Mozart’s librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, the creator of The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi Fan Tutte, and the man who introduced opera to America, was derogatorily known behind his back as “the Jewish Priest.” My newly released multi-generational novel Meeting Mozart In Venice, Vienna & Prague; From the Secret Diaries of Lorenzo Da Ponte, explores how Da Ponte and his modern day descendants endured the anti-Semitism of Europe, early modern New York City, and the Holocaust, by asking the question: “How does a Jew survive in an essentially hostile world?” 

Howard Jay Smith is an award-winning writer from Santa Barbara, California. Meeting Mozart is his fourth book. A former TV & Film executive, Smith taught in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. and has lectured nationally. He serves on the board of directors of the Santa Barbara Symphony. 

JEWS OF DIFFERENT HUES: Growing up Jewish in the South

The Nativ­i­ty video was the turn­ing point for my moth­er. My kinder­garten teacher had called her at home that Decem­ber to ask whether she should let me — the only Jew­ish kid in the class — watch a video about the birth of Jesus, or have me sit in the hall. 

Where am I? my moth­er thought, not for the first time. 

My par­ents’ sojourn in North Car­oli­na was meant to be brief. She was from Man­hat­tan; he was from a heav­i­ly Jew­ish Bal­ti­more sub­urb. He was offered a two-year fel­low­ship posi­tion, after which they’d move back north. But two years came and went, and the fel­low­ship turned into a per­ma­nent job. Now they were home­own­ers rais­ing kids in 1980s Durham, a place where the butch­er looked at you quizzi­cal­ly when you request­ed a shank bone for Passover; where the syn­a­gogue was referred to as ​“Jew­ish church”; and where show­ing a Nativ­i­ty video in pub­lic school was appar­ent­ly nor­mal. They had choic­es to make — how to react in sit­u­a­tions like these? 

Emi­ly Matchar has writ­ten for an array of pub­li­ca­tions, includ­ing the New York Times, the Wash­ing­ton Post, Out­side, Smith­son­ian, and the Atlantic. Orig­i­nal­ly from North Car­oli­na, she lives with her hus­band and two sons. In the Shad­ow of the Green­bri­er is her first novel.

ARTICLE: The Persian-Jewish grandma who wants

to feed the entire IDF from her apartment

NYC-raised scion of one of Tehran's most prominent Jewish families, 84-year-old 'Chicki' Elghanian makes 300 meals a day while praying for the destruction of the Iranian regime.

GUEST COLUMNIST - EVE BARLOW, Creator of Blacklisted

Israel Retaliates

Eve Barlow @Eve_Barlow

"The interrupter"

Journalist. Zionist. Feminist. Scottish.

evebarlow.substack.com/subscribe

64.9K Followers

GUEST EDITORIAL: What Others Won't Say

by Thane Rosenbaum

"In Michigan, this past week, pro-Hamas demonstrators chanted, “Death to America!” The congresswoman who represents that district refused to condemn her constituents. The Founding Fathers gave us the First Amendment so as to debate the issues of the day, not to issue death sentences." 

Novelist. Essayist. Author. News Analyst. Culture Critic. Talk Show Host. Renaissance Guy...

Thane Rosenbaum is a law professor, legal and Middle East analyst, novelist, essayist, and Distinguished University Professor at Touro University.

ESSAY: A Necklace by Michelle Braun

In my memory, I always owned, always wore the Star of David necklace my mother had given me. It had been hers, a gift from an older brother, I think. The design was the simple six-pointed star encircled by a lightly textured rim—all in gold—with a silver-toned shape meant to invoke the two tablets brought down from Sinai by Moses. The entire charm was maybe the size of an American dime. 

Following a career in public policy, in 2022 Michele Braun earned an MA in Jewish Education from Hebrew University and now provides adult Jewish education classes and consulting services to synagogues and community organizations. Topics of particular interest include Contemporary Torah Study, Jewish Textile Art as Modern Midrash, and making mainstream classrooms more accessible to students with disabilities.

SHORT STORY: I’m no Anne Frank.

I’m not a man of words, by Maurice Labi

The letter didn’t arrive. My father leaned over the fifth-floor balcony railing of his apartment building and searched for the postman below. “Why couldn’t he be punctual like the Germans?” he said, wanting to draw in my mother’s attention.

At first, he hinged the letter’s delay on Israel’s antiquated postal service. “They might as well carry mail on camelback,” he hissed, and returned to the living room, his eyes on the wall-mounted clock.

Maurice Labi was born in London, educated in Tel-Aviv, and in Los Angeles. He holds a master’s degree in English. His blog https://notesfromgalilee.wordpress.com tells of his return to Israel. He is the son of a holocaust survivor, a young boy who had been transported from Benghazi, Libya, to Italy, to Bergen-Belsen camp. His short stories were shortlisted with New Letters, won first prize at University of Haifa. Married with children, he splits his time between the US and Galilee, Israel. His prior story, a memoir, A BOY ADRIFT, tells of his Israeli immigrant clash with 1960s America.