Talia's 2025-2026 newsletters

July 2026:

https://secure.campaigner.com/csb/Public/show/6dns-31e1rw--1daswy-m0pqbqi4

January 2026:

https://secure.campaigner.com/csb/Public/show/6dns-303f22--1c06wr-krqqke25

November 2025:

https://secure.campaigner.com/csb/Public/show/6dns-2zikan--1bf515-krqqke25

August:

https://secure.campaigner.com/csb/Public/show/6dns-2ys6v7--1a8j8k-krqqke24

May:

 https://secure.campaigner.com/csb/Public/show/6dns-2xi34o--19wtev-krqqke29

March:

https://secure.campaigner.com/csb/Public/show/6dns-2wnbvc--19d839-krqqke24

February:

https://secure.campaigner.com/csb/Public/show/6dns-2wajke--1949ia-krqqke27

January 2025:

https://secure.campaigner.com/csb/Public/show/6dns-2vy08p--18m52h-krqqke36

The French L'Expresse about "Boycott of “Zionist” personalities"

 On June 4, 2024, the French Newspaper L'Expresse wrote about the trend in the U.S. of singling out Jewish personalities in the arts by publishing lists of Jewish authors and their supporters, as well as musicians and others supporters of Israel so they "understand that there are consequences to their choices."

https://www.lexpress.fr/idees-et-debats/boycott-de-personnalites-sionistes-les-dessous-glacants-de-ces-listes-devenues-virales-GWTIJAWBSJF33NLYESQRCHULFU/

Below is an imperfect Google translation of the article:

Boycott of “Zionist” personalities: the chilling underside of these lists that

have gone viral 

By Alix L’Hospital

 Conflict in the Middle East. Since the start of the war in Gaza, lists of names of celebrities to boycott have been circulating on social networks. The nomination criteria reveal the meaning given to “Zionism” by their detractors…

 Tell me what a “Zionist” is, I’ll tell you what becomes of “anti-Zionism”… In the 2010s, “lists” designating “Zionists” were teeming above all on a few conspiracy blogs with anti-Semitic tendencies. This was the case of Panamza, a blog obsessed with Israel and the Jews, or of Egalité & Réconciliation, the site of the far-right essayist Alain Soral, who published in 2019 a “Diagram of the Left” mapping in particular alleged heavyweights of “Zionism”. A reader struck by catalepsy a few years ago and awakened at the start of the war in Gaza would probably be stunned: in 2024, there is nothing confidential or subversive about these lists. They are available in portrait galleries on trendy Instagram accounts (a publication, a name, a Studio Harcourt-style photo) and in TikTok videos with an educational approach. Everything is “argued”, “sourced”, with a view to “informing” and, ultimately, boycotting.

 On Instagram, Zionists in Music now has nearly 16,000 subscribers, just two months after its first publication. By its own admission, the account acknowledges in an introductory post that the evolving list is “mainly composed of Jewish individuals”. But here, we promise, we do not condone anti-Semitism. The idea being "to enlighten musicians about their position within this industry and for them to recognize the impact of their choices", by targeting those who have "publicly supported Zionism". By this, Zionists in music means, for example, the fact of being subscribed to “Zionist accounts” on social networks, such as Jewish lives matter, Jewish Life Now, or even certain personalities committed against anti-Semitism such as Shai Davidai, professor Israeli of Jewish faith at Columbia Business School.

 This account is far from an isolated case. In second place, we find Zionists in films, more recent and on the verge of reaching 10,500 subscribers. Same concept, same visual identity. In the "tools" made available by the account there is also a call to "create more pages" of this kind, that is to say targeting "Zionists" in other sectors of activity such as government, mainstream media (MSM), academia, the army, banks, publishing, justice, medicine... Because according to Zionists in films, "to defeat Zionism, more Zionists need are unmasked and stigmatized. At the end of May, a new account dedicated to “Zionists in sport” appeared on Instagram.

 “Accomplices” Jew

 "Even if they are not overtly targeted because they are Jewish, highlighting the names of Jews who are not particularly politically engaged, but have, for example, simply shown empathy for Israelis after the jihadist massacre of October 7, called for peace, or have links with Jewish people committed to Israel betrays a reconstruction of the anti-Jewish imagination, analyzes Pierre-André Taguieff, philosopher, historian of ideas and honorary research director at the CNRS. Behind this process, we read the trial of bad Jews, "accomplices" Jews, having not given proof of their friendliness by not denying Israel, or by not supporting strongly enough, to the liking of the small prosecutors who establish these lists, the Palestinian cause. The cleverness lies in the fact that these lists also include 'non-Jews'. Very practical..." 

These accounts are only the emerging part of the phenomenon. On social networks, lists in the form of directories circulate using an URL link to a table that can be consulted by everyone. More discreet, but terribly effective. At the beginning of May, a document entitled "is your favorite author a zionist?" ("Is your favorite author a Zionist?"), listing nearly 200 names, for example went viral on Twitter. As we write these lines, several Internet users are still consulting it, according to real-time data from the shared document.

 Everything is neatly stored there. In blue: authors considered “pro-Palestine/ anti-Zionist”. In red, “pro-Israel/Zionist”. Significantly, most of those targeted are authors of young adult fiction. Here again, the reasons for the boycott are puzzling. The simple fact of having posted a message in support of the Israelis the day after the October 7 attack is enough, for example, to make Monica Murphy or Nicholas Sparks authors to be boycotted.

 Anti-Zionism recoded into humanism

 But there is more surprising: among the authors to be boycotted is also Rebecca Yarros, queen of “romantasy”. Among the wrongs of the author of the Fourth Wing phenomenon saga : being “married to a soldier”. As for SF specialist Pierce Brown, he has certainly written about apartheid, but he reads "Henry Kissinger, which doesn't help his case." Having fled Nazi persecution with his family in the late 1930s, the former Secretary of State was a controversial figure in American diplomacy during the Cold War, notably known for his role as mediator between Israel and the Arab countries after the Yom Kippur War. For its part, the Anti-Zionism recoded into humanism.

 Better: for being moved by the "horrible massacre of innocent civilians, first in Israel and now, in a catastrophically disproportionate manner, in Gaza", Laini Taylor, a novelist specializing in fantasy, is also given the same treatment. In reality, not "understanding" Hamas is already suspect. This is what earned science fiction author Michael Grant an “unclear” badge (a sort of “awaiting judgment”). Too bad if the latter was very critical of the “racist and extremist” government of “the crook Netanyahu”.

 Fantasy novelist Sarah J. Maas is accused of bringing to life characters expressing "colonialist ideologies without specifying that it is morally reprehensible". JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter saga ? A “Terf” (acronym designating a radical feminist excluding trans people), “so the discussion stops here”.

 "For the vast majority of Jews, 'Zionism' symbolizes emancipation and self determination. But the notion has been the subject of an operation of demonization similar to that which anti-Judaism has exercised against Jews. Jews for centuries.

"Zionism is thus on its way to becoming a synonym for everything that civilized people rightly abhor: racism, colonialism, warmongering, oppression," explains Rudy Reichstadt, political scientist, director of Conspiracy Watch and co-director of a Political History of Anti-Semitism in France If, historically, radical anti-Zionism was motivated by anti-Semitism, today, Rudy Reichstadt . describes an anti-Zionism "recoded into humanism which guides a whole part of the youth on the path of an anti-Semitism all the more dangerous as it advances sure of its right and freed from any bad conscience".

 “Zionists are demons”

 “I am on this list because I am Jewish, because I was born and raised in Israel,” novelist Talia Carner, labeled in red (“Zionist”), explains to L’Express. The author has had time to think about why she been pinned: her name has been circulating on various lists since December. "My latest book, The boy with the star tattoo, has been widely cited by 'antiZionists' who are calling for a boycott of me," she explains. "This book deals with Israeli issues, but all the events I describe in it are take place in France, first in 1946 (it is a story about orphans after the Second World War), then in 1969. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is never mentioned… As a Jew born in Israel , my detractors criticize me for not having written about the Palestinians – or insist that I shouldn't have written this book at all."

 On Goodreads, a platform listing reader reviews, the author suffered waves of denigration following her appearance on anti-Zionist lists. Among the comments regarding her latest book, we can read: "Zionist propaganda that practically ignores the nakba", "we do not support Zionist propaganda", "Zionists are demons"... Today, Talia Carner is forced to remain discreet where she travels, including during events open to the public.

 Do not trust the Englishness of most of these lists: France is far from being spared by the phenomenon. On TikTok, some very influential Frenchspeaking accounts invested in the concept very early on. Like Venomglazed, a young girl who loves literature. In a video published on October 19 intended for its nearly 50,000 subscribers, it offered in music a list of authors who “support [the] ethnic cleansing [of the Palestinian community]”, “proof” to support it. There we find Sarah J. Maas, “who claims to have left Israel with great joy, nostalgia and pride”. The proof is a screenshot: an article clearly mentioning the writer's Jewish origins and her relationship to Judaism. Likewise, LJ Shen, New Adult romance author whose “husband was enlisted in the Israeli armies and who proudly posts her husband’s profession”, is singled out. Too bad if the screenshot put forward to prove these statements dates from nine years ago. No matter, the issue is not here.

 --AL

 

Dear Authors' Guild Leadership: Anti-Semitism has "no two sides to the story."

 

              Dear Authors’ Guild Leadership;

         In recent months, anti-Semitism in the USA has reared its ugly head. It has manifested its vile words and actions in every public sphere, and soon found a target in Jewish authors and writers. The calls to ban Jewish authors’ books and to force mainstream publishers such as HarperCollins and Macmillan's to “deplatform” their Jewish authors has been exploding unchecked on social media, such as TikTok, Instagram and X.

            Beyond words, actions have soon followed. Scheduled Jewish authors’ events have been canceled and many venues would not invite them to present. Agents are turning down manuscripts by Jewish writers or are firing Jewish clients whose work they had agreed to represent. These gate-keepers of the publishing world know that acquisition editors will not buy them.  

            The virulent anti-Semitism against Jewish authors in the USA has been documented in recent articles in the New York Times and the New York Post. In the UK, The British Telegraph reported that half of British publishers will not accept manuscripts by Jewish authors. Yet the Authors’ Guild, which should have been the first to raise its voice in indignation over the atrocious hate-fest against a significant portion of its members, has been kept mum.

            Silence is loud. Silence is screaming. The Authors’ Guild which has spoken in no uncertain terms against banning books, which has taken pride in advocating for authors, and which declares in its mission statement to serve as the voice for authors, is yet to issue a statement of disgust and condemnation of the hate speech and outright actions taken against its Jewish members.

            In 1933, in over 20 cities in Germany, fires were set to burn books written by Jews. Those books were the cornerstone of what we consider our Western civilization, written by Franz Werfel, Max Brod, Stefan Zweig,  Einstein, and Freud among them. German newspapers triumphantly reported that “Germany was purging itself of Jews” because silencing and destroying Jewish voices was only an early step to what we all now know came next.

            The Holocaust did not begin with incinerators. It began with words.

            In 2020, the Authors’ Guild passed a resolution against racism. Isn’t the singling out Jewish authors not only for discrimination and scorn but also for actions against them is the ultimate racism? We, Jewish members of the Authors’ Guild—and Jewish writers everywhere—deserve the same consideration, sympathy, and protection that you have generously and rightfully extended to our brothers and sisters who are Black writers and writers of color.

            What has happened to your moral compass that you allow attacks on Jewish authors go on for months without a response?

            Dear leaders of the Authors’ Guild: Anti-Semitism has no “two sides of the story.” It has one side, and it is ugly and dangerous. Unless you speak up, you are taking the position of the evil.

 

Sincerely,

 Talia Carner

Authors’ Guild Member since 1997

www.TaliaCarner.com

           

This letter was sent to Staff@authorsguild.org with the request to distribute it to each person in a leadership, council, honorary, or staff role.  

AN UPDATE: In late June 2024, The Authors' Guild issued a statement:

"The Authors Guild condemns censoring, threatening, or blacklisting authors. We are aware of recent incidents in which presses have refused to publish articles and speaking engagements have been canceled based on the writer’s religious or national identity or their views relating to Israel or Palestine, as well as attempts to “blacklist” authors. We abhor antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, and other forms of bigotry and discrimination intended to chill writers’ freedom of expression."   

 

 

A Letter to a Peace-Loving Humanitarian

 

The following letter is my response to an activist who tried to recruit me for his cause of "Strategy of Nonviolence, For the Children." 

Dear Mr. Sheldon,

          Thank you for writing to me, as it gives me the opportunity to explain that despite your good intentions, your initiative is, unfortunately, misguided, if not outright hateful and fateful.

            The idea of an enforced cease-fire between Israel, a democratic state and Hamas, a terror organization, means only one thing: the terror organization will continue to pursue its declared goal of eliminating Israel and killing its entire population. You will be prohibiting Israel from responding to murderous attacks on her populace. Not only has Hamas been showering Israel for years with thousands of daily missiles aimed at the civilian population—which had not prompted you to announce an initiative to force Hamas to stop—but Hamas broke every ceasefire ever negotiated with them. 

            How is your forcing Israel to stop fighting Hamas promotes peace? All it will do is strengthen and legitimize the terror organization which has declared that October 7th was only “a rehearsal” and that it would continue to repeat these barbaric atrocities to eliminate Israel. 

            Why isn’t your first call to demand that Hamas return the hostages? Why doesn’t your “strategy for non-violence” begin with a demand that Hamas surrender and stop using the Palestinian population as human shields? 

            You’ve had plenty of chances to take initiative. For years you could have demanded that US and Europe stop funneling money through the UN to perpetuate indefinite refugee status of the Palestinians. Tens of millions of displaces people after WWII had long been resettled. None is claiming to be a refugee three generations later, even while living in other countries, where they have made a home. Definitely not the Jews, who’d lost more than any other ethnic or national group. 

            Why haven’t you demanded—or demanding now—that the Arab countries who had exploited these people in 1948 with their murderous intention of annihilating Israel, now take responsibility for the results? None has ever offered to absorb a single Palestinian family. In fact, most have enacted apartheid laws against the Palestinians’ entry and integration. Unlike Israel which had provided employment to tens of thousands Gazans daily, Egypt had sealed its border with Gaza. 

            For your information, in 1948, the population in Gaza was about 300,000. It has since swelled to 2 million. In 2030, Gaza's population is projected to reach 3 million. Yes, in only six years it will grow by 50%. Whose responsibility is that? Where do you want these people to live? 

            Asking the question differently: What should the world do for this population you so care about when it grows additional 50% six years later, reaching over 4 million? Taking over modern-day Israel and killing the Jews living there? 

            Why haven’t you cried out your indignation when, for 75 years, UNRWA-sponsored schools taught children not only how to hate Jews, but how to use weapons to kill them, viewing Jews as less than humans? Why haven’t you cried out when you heard time and again that Palestinian parents’ greatest hopes for their children were for them to become “martyrs” who kill Jews? Where was your initiative when your tax dollars paid for militant summer camps teaching Palestinian children to kill? 

            What you now learn about children killed in Gaza, is that thousands of them are teenagers fighting as terrorists they had been indoctrinated to become. What was your strategy of non-violence for these children then, and what is it now? 

            The atrocities visited upon the Jews on October 7th were rarely recorded in their intensity, barbarism, and severity in modern human history. Yet, your past silence allowed it to happen. Your future “initiative” will make such final genocide of Jews in Israel a fact. 

            Where are your Christian sensitivities and benevolence when you accept the beheading of Jewish babies in their cribs and the lopping off of women’s breasts? What about shooting nails into women’s vaginas? How about gouging out a father’s eyes in front of his children, or burning a whole family alive in their home? 

            This will be the fate of the Jews under the repeat torture and massacre that your “non-violent cease-fire” will bring.  

            Cease-fire does not mean non-violence as you state. It means increased violence against the Jews of Israel. That is exactly what you preach. 

            Yes, Mr. Sheldon, there is a lot of work to be done, but the first of it is to support Israel which is under constant, unrelenting attack by terrorists whose actions against both populations—Israelis and Palestinians—are accepted by you and by other misguided good souls cheered on by mobs of anti-Semites. The cost of the war to both sides is enormous, but stopping it before it achieves its ultimate goal of eliminating Hamas only means the end of Israel, while giving legitimacy to a terror organization.  

            You can help stop the war. When you present your views to your list of misguided supporters and to the UN Secretary-General, please demand that the onus for achieving peace is on the world to stop terrorism. Demand Hamas’s unconditional surrender, just as ISIS was defeated. Demand the immediate return the hostages—and the end the war on Israel. 

            Please do not shift your gaze, for one minute, from the one entity that can stop the war: Hamas. 

            By doing so you’ll be freeing the Palestinian people, who may not be enamored of Israel, but whose suffering is wholly the result of years of oppression, corruption, and savagery by Hamas. Without Hamas, the war with Israel will stop and, with time and a different educational approach, these people may begin to have a vision of peace and prosperity. 

            It’s a simple as that. 

            Then you may turn to the world to fix the evil of UNRWA and the barbaric teaching of hate under its sponsorship. You may see future funding of Gaza not exploited for the construction of war-designated tunnels, but for the civilian purposes of building a society whose institutions carry out a vision of economic growth. 

            Mr. Sheldon, I urge you to rechannel your energy to support Israel, not to make her the victim of another Holocaust, as Hamas promises to do.

 Shalom,

Talia Carner

www.TaliaCarner.com 

Talia Carner is a novelist with HarperCollins. Her latest novel is THE BOY WITH THE STAR TATTOO. 

Sharon, an assistant to an Israeli naval officer stationed in Normandy, France, is intent on tracing his orphan roots to the French village from where he had been rescued post-WWII. When she identifies the mother who had tragically lost him, Sharon is unprepared for the shock of her discovery.

 

 

THE THIRD DAUGHTER has reached the top!

The Jewish Book Council announced its winners....

2020 National Jewish Book Award
Finalist

THE THIRD DAUGHTER  reached a finalist spot in the Book Club category. (It's an honor to lose to Alice Hoffman....)

This seal will be appear on the cover of the novel as of the next printing.

In her letter to my publisher, HarperCollins, JBC Executive Director wrote: "We recognize and appreciate your editorial decision to publish a book of such high quality.... one that contributes to informed living, understanding, and entertainment for the entire English-reading world."

Yes, once again with my fiction writing, I've stepped into an arena few have ever dared entered. It took compassion and maturity on my part, but it was my fabulous editor, Kate Nintzel, who has had the courage and wisdom to support the project and then to publish THE THIRD DAUGHTER.


WOW again!

Two days after the JBC announcement, BookMovement, which serves tens of thousands of book clubs, posted its choice of the "Historical fiction of the month!" It has selected THE THIRD DAUGHTER, and is offering a giveaway of copies of the book!

Click here to enter BookMovement giveaway for book clubs.
(And please don't forget to mail me a photo of your meeting for a monthly drawing of a beautiful shawl, replica of the one worn by the protagonist on the cover--at AuthorTalia@aol.com .)

 

After months and years of toiling alone, it's such a pleasure to share my work with you....

 
 After spending long days, weeks and months ladling words out of an ocean of emotions and empathy, it’s a great feeling to take my work to the public and to discuss the social issues that fire my imagination--and to find such receptive readers.

* I Skype with book clubs, joining the second part of the meeting, after members have had a chance to discuss the book, to exchange opinions and even to disagree. That's what makes a meeting more thought-provoking. (Please contact me to check my availability to Skype at AuthorTalia@aol.com, not this newsletter gmail account.)
* My book tour is in full swing, with over 30 keynotes and presentations in the first part of 2020 alone!  (Please join me if you can.)
* I have given numerous written interviews.
* I have spoken at radio and podcasts. (Please listen to one broadcast here.)
* Most importantly, I get to educate readers about sex trafficking, and through the humanity of the protagonist, to gain understanding and compassion. In a call for action, I direct audiences to my activism page and show them what they can do to fight this scourge in their own backyard.

 The shameful secret readers are most surprised to learn.... 

 Set in the late 1800s in Buenos Aires,  THE THIRD DAUGHTER is a story of a young Jewish woman lured under false promise of marriage from Russia to South America, where she's forced into prostitution. With faith and fortitude, she struggles to free herself, while trying to bring down the powerful traffickers' ring.

Historically true, THE THIRD DAUGHTER was inspired by Sholem Aleichem's short story, The Man from Buenos Aires,  that appeared in the same collection as Tevye the Dairyman. I invented the story of one of Tevye's daughters after the family flees a pogrom (--a sequel to Fiddler on the Roof.) They meet this mysterious, shady man, who lures the daughter from Russia to Argentina with a false promise of marriage--only to force her into a brothel. 

Zwi Migdal was a legal union of traffickers headquartered in Buenos Aires, that operated with impunity for 70 years. THE THIRD DAUGHTER is a tribute to the estimated over 150,000 Jewish girls and women whose haunting voices impelled me to tell their truth....

But as the iconic  Phyllis Chesler writes in her endorsement, the novel has "a satisfying, redemptive ending!"

And readers echo it:  "This book will be on my mind for the rest of my life, "The best book I've ever read," and "I can't begin to describe how good it is...."
(Please click for more reviews.)

On the personal side....

More often now interviewers ask me “Who are you?” “What else do you do besides writing?”  They read my [extensive] bio on my website, yet still wonder about me.

Yes, there is life outside writing, publishing, activism, and book touring. In fact, I have a very large family—a husband, Ron Carner, and four grown children, all married with kids of their own…. We all love to spend time together, and make a point to do that often, but are okay when we don’t, when each goes their own way, involved in their own busy lives. Ron and I are very proud that our children are all well-adjusted, productive adults that carry our Jewish values forward.

The 19 of us, with me on the top step next to Ron

Ron and I travel internationally a couple of times a year. This spring it will be France (where I am researching novel #6,) and in the Fall it will be Japan. We have a busy cultural and social life of theater, concerts and friends.

I study French online daily, and exercise most days (jazz dance alternate with weights or Pilates.) When my schedule permits, I join a Mah-Jongg game. I particularly like nature walks, and whether in New York or Boca Raton, I always find a park or a nature preserve to listen to the birds….

How do I find time to write? I don't require a lot of sleep....

Please join me for an engaging literary event:  

In my presentations, I do not do "readings," but rather deliver thought-provoking talks about the social issues behind each of my novels. Audiences and event organizers find them "enriching," "extraordinary," "engaging," "superbly performed," "eye-opening," and "unforgettable." 

In the coming months you'll find me in New York area, New Jersey and Florida. Please check my Book Tour page and meet me there!  
 

Hadassah Cascades (FL) January 2020

 
I would like to single out one upcoming event, my presentation about sex trafficking on Friday, March 20th, at the UN, at the Commission of the Status of Women. For the second time I get to broadcast my novel's message on the international arena. (The previous presentation, on March 2007, was about infanticide in China and its platform was my novel, CHINA DOLL.)

To schedule an event with me, please contact my event coordinator, Lisa Bernard at MecoxHudson@gmail.com or (203)919-8406 

Thanks--and more....   

Thank you all for your interest and support.

I would like to ask you to help spread the word. One way is to post a review on Amazon and/or GoodReads. Even a couple of lines will do, but it helps to get the word out.

Thank you for your friendship in the real and cyber worlds--and I am looking forward to hearing from you!

Talia

www.TaliaCarner.com



P.S.  You may read the first chapter of THE THIRD DAUGHTER on my website--and of course, order at your local indie store, on B&N,  Amazon, and iTunes.

P.P.S. The novel is available also in LARGE PRINT!

Sex and tango in Buenos Aires in the late 1800s

THE THIRD DAUGHTER, a new novel

In my new novel I dared enter an arena never explored before....             

              

It took enormous courage for me to write THE THIRD DAUGHTER and to expose a buried, tragic chapter in history in which estimated 200,000 women were deceptively lured from Eastern Europe into prostitution in South America during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The whispers of millions of girls and women ensnared into sexual slavery grew into loud cries in my head until I had to give them a voice. It took research, but also maturity, compassion and skill to follow the thread that turned THE THIRD DAUGHTER into a story of courage in the face of danger and hope in the face of despair.

The novel will be released on September 3rd by HarperCollins. (It is available for pre-order wherever books are sold.)

Summary of THE THIRD DAUGHTER:   

       

The turn of the 20th century finds fourteen-year-old Batya in the Russian countryside, fleeing with her family from endless Jewish massacres. Desperate, her father leaps at the opportunity to marry Batya to a worldly, wealthy stranger who can guarantee his daughter an easy life and passage to America. Feeling like a princess in a fairy tale, Batya leaves her old life behind as she is whisked away to a new world. But soon she discovers that she’s entered a waking nightmare. Her new “husband” does indeed bring her to America: Buenos Aires, a vibrant, growing city in which prostitution is not only legal but deeply embedded in the culture. And now Batya is one of thousands of women tricked and sold into a brothel.

As the years pass, Batya forms deep bonds with her “sisters” in the house as well as some men who are both kind and cruel. Through it all, she holds onto one dream: to bring her family to America where they will be safe from the anti-Semitism that plagues Russia. Just as Batya is becoming a known tango dancer, she gets an unexpected but dangerous opportunity—to help bring down the criminal network that has enslaved so many young women yet has been instrumental in developing Buenos Aires into a major metropolis.

This shameful chapter in history is true!   

              

For 70 years, a legal union of traffickers headquartered in Buenos Aires operated with impunity. Zwi Migdal’s members--well-dressed men, speaking Yiddish and flaunting their success--returned to visit their native Eastern European communities on recruitment expeditions. They offered marriages and jobs in the New World, but instead kidnapped these girls and women and forced them into prostitution.

Protected by the Argentine government's laws (as the state budget relied on taxing the brothels,) Zwi Migdal reported at the turn of the 20th century profits of $50 million a year. In some years they employed up to 30,000 women all across South America, (and reaching New York's Lower East Side.)

The inspiration....       

While there is plenty of English-language material about Zwi Migdal (and a lot more in Spanish,) there is hardly any work of fiction since, in 1909, the Yiddish storyteller Sholem Aleichem published a short story, THE MAN FROM BUENOS AIRES. (You may read its translation on my website.)

Interestingly, this story about a shady businessman who brags about his riches but never reveals the nature of his affairs, appeared in the same story collection as the stories about Tevye the dairyman and his daughters, most known in its theatrical adaptation to FIDDLER ON THE ROOF.

My imagination was fired at the question of what would have happened if, after fleeing a pogrom, Tevye’s unmarried daughter met that shady man from Buenos Aires?

Activism          

              

In the coming months, before the novel's release, I will team up with anti-trafficking organizations, local, domestic and international. As I had done with my previous social-issue-centered novels, I will use THE THIRD DAUGHTER as a platform for speaking opportunities and calls for action.

In my book tour, I will inform audiences what they can do about the evil of human slavery in their own backyard. If your organization sponsors a fund-raiser, a literary event, or any form of public stage from which to educate and inspire, I would welcome your invitation. Please contact my event coordinator, Lisa Bernard, at MecoxHudson@gmail.com, or call her at  (203)293-4741 .

I am looking forward to visiting your community.

Read more on my website....              

My website has been updated to include material about THE THIRD DAUGHTER:

* Chapter one 

* Author Q &A 

* The fascinating historical background of the novel 

* Shocking videos about Zwi Migdal and prostitution in Argentina 

* And the above mentioned Sholem Aleichem's story 

 And finally.... 

              

I can't end this blog without mentioning one more inspiration for THE THIRD DAUGHTER--my late mother's painting. My mother, Reviva Yoffe, was a renowned Israeli artist, and this painting, which she had named "The Tango Dancers," revealed to me something profound about these two characters' relationship. When I struggled with doubts as to whether even tackle the subject of bondage, I found encouragement from my late mother....

Thank you for your interest and support. I am looking forward to reconnecting with you in the coming months. Please email me your questions and thoughts.

Talia Carner

www.TaliaCarner.com

  

P.S. Please pre-order THE THIRD DAUGHTER now--in print, digital or audio--and help get the buzz going.

HOTEL MOSCOW--The Launch

         My new novel, HOTEL MOSCOW was released in June with a great party, in which the ice sculpture was as much of a hit as the book.

          In my April  and May newsletters I  touched on my experiences in Russia: I was a consultant to Fortune 500 companies when, in 1993, I was sent by the U.S. Information Agency to Russia to teach Russian women the entrepreneurial skills they needed after the fall of communism. On my second visit, in October, I was caught in the uprising of the Russian parliament against President Yeltsin, was chased by the militia, and was threatened with jail.

Most intriguing: 

         In the dozen radio talks I’ve given these past two weeks since the launch of HOTEL MOSCOW, every interviewer was fascinated by the novel’s backdrop: the terrifying portrait of a nation in transition from Communism, of a world superpower undergoing a profound and violent change.

            It is hard for us to imagine the misery of life under Soviet totalitarian regime. It is even harder to grasp the nightmare of waking up one day to a world where all laws have been obliterated. While bewildered Russians struggled to learn new survival skills in new market economy, the corruption and brutality of the former Soviet regime was now imitated by thousands of mafia groups. HOTEL MOSCOW tells it with an inside view. As one reviewer wrote, “HOTEL MOSCOW taught me lessons about humanity, about what we, as people, are capable of.”

What has not changed? 

   

Photo by Yevgeny Kondako

In the new Russia young people discover new opportunities and restaurants are now store-front (formerly out of sight in basements or second floors.) Yet, dozens of industrial cities are as bleak and hopeless as before. And in beautiful St. Petersburg, the Soviet kommunalka, the communal apartment, where a family of three may live in a room as small as 5 x10 ft.—and shares a toilet, bath and kitchen with five to ten other families—is still home to millions of Russians. The lack of privacy is shown in this unique photo I was able to obtain. In HOTEL MOSCOW, readers get an inside view of such a life through Svetlana, one of the Russian characters.

 Author at launch time.... 

    “What does releasing the novel involve?” people ask me.

It’s exhilarating. But a book does not break out of the gate without long preparations and continued attention. The book launch was immediately followed by the release of my essays and blogs. My piece about identifying with Second-Generation—children of Holocaust survivors (even though I am not)—garnered a huge readership, as did my essay about my secular, faithless Jewish identity. Both are issues that the protagonist of HOTEL MOSCOW, Brooke Fielding, struggles with. 

            But it is the early morning commuter radio shows that present me with a physical challenge: How do I speak without sounding as though I had just woken up? I wake up 40 minutes earlier and reset my sleepy voice by belting out the ABC song. I am not up to anything more operatic….

Meeting you! 

            The most exciting part of publishing a new novel is my many speaking engagements. After years of toiling away at my keyboard in solitude, now comes the time when I share my passions with others. I don’t do “readings,” but rather talk about the background issues of the novel. Please join me in the coming weeks and months at the many events already scheduled in NY, NJ, CT and MA. (In August I’ll publish the travel schedule to Detroit, Pennsylvania, Boston and others.)

To say that my new novel, HOTEL MOSCOW was “long awaited” is a cliché that I, a writer, must avoid. But the thousands of readers who pre-ordered it and the dozens of bloggers that areposting their reviews give me a high that only an entertainer on stage can understand.

The bloggers are joining the chorus of bestselling suspense authors such as Nelson DeMille who wrote: “A finely drawn tale of a country emerging from its dark Soviet past into a present overshadowed by a new kind of terror and lawless corruption…. That will keep the reader mesmerized…. An insightful post-Cold War thriller.”

Thank you!

Talia Carner

www.TaliaCarner.com

 

P.S. While I encourage you to support your local indiebookstore, and I thank B&N for its loyalty, and Amazon is always a great online seller, I can’t not share with you that Costco now carries HOTEL MOSCOW (see below)!

HOTEL MOSCOW in Costco

  

  

  

HOTEL MOSCOW-- The Surprises

[Note to readers: With the launch of HOTEL MOSCOW this week, I've been late in posting the May newsletter that had been sent last month to subscribers. Please write to MecoxHudson2@aol.com to receive your June mailing as soon as it is available.]

Hello to old friends who have read my previous novels, and hello to new ones that, I hope, will soon embark on a satisfying journey with Brooke Fielding, the protagonist of my new novel, HOTEL MOSCOW.

In my April newsletter—the first in this monthly series—I touched on how my experiences in Russia have finally materialized in HOTEL MOSCOW: I was a consultant to Fortune 500 companies when, in 1993, I was sent by the U.S. Information Agency to Russia to teach Russian women the entrepreneurial skills they needed after the fall of communism. On my second visit, in October, I was caught in the uprising of the Russian parliament against President Yeltsin, was chased by the militia and was threatened with jail.
​
THE SURPRISES
     

What equally terrified me in the midst of a civil war was seeing graffiti of Yeltsin's name with the letter L—a triangle in Cyrillic—turned into a Star of David. When I asked why, I was told, “The Jews are behind it.” 

       It was a sobering introduction to virulent anti-Semitism. Jews were again being blamed for events that had nothing to do with us! 

The second surprise happened on November 3, 1993 at 2:48 PM—just four weeks after my escape from Moscow—when I sat down and began to write fiction. 

       A story happens when the individual’s spirit clashes with the power of religion, social conformity, or political upheaval—and emerges victorious. And I’ve had quite a few stories to tell. But it took me to mature as a writer and have the perspective of time to return to this particular historical time and place. 

THE RESEARCH 

    

An over-arching situation sets the background for a novel and drives the plot, but often marginal fragments of research spin the story into a surprising, new orbit. 

In Moscow I had witnessed some of the uprising first hand, with hundreds of civilians attacking a large police unit, the heavy artillery military confrontation, and the burning of the parliament building. But to make sense of the events, back in the USA I attended lectures about the Russian politics of the time and interviewed Cold War-era US security personnel. I recorded personal accounts of recent Soviet immigrants about the suffering and tribulations of living at the bottom of the food chain in a corrupt society. Personally, while visiting Russia twice in 1993, I watched the most educated group of women I had ever met suffer the indignation that came from deprivation: When the famous food lines led to empty stores, these women were reduced to being gatherers and hunters almost like the African women I had counseled before.

HOTEL MOSCOW's unique themes:

       Brooke meets Russians conditioned to distrust after a lifetime of bankrupt ideology and empty slogans—and living in nightmarish communal apartments. They are trying to make sense of a bewildering world in transition from communism, a world where economic survival is critical yet overwhelmingly foreign. 

       On a different layer, HOTEL MOSCOW also has two strong Jewish themes: One is the legacy of second-generation, children born in freedom to Holocaust survivors. The other is the challenge of forging secular Jewish identity unrelated to faith. I wanted to juxtaposed these ideas against blatant anti-Semitism, and so I sent my protagonist to Russia to see how she would react. 

​COMING UP:

It is exhilarating to meet book lovers. Please check my upcoming book tour schedule, starting in NY, NJ, and CT. (By August I’ll add my visits elsewhere.)

In my keynote speeches I talk about what happens to a society when women are excluded from participating in the public arena. I speak about the forged identity of an unaffiliated, secular Jew, or I discuss how stories find me.

     

Stay tuned: There is so much I want to tell you (and Skype with you in your book groups!) In my next newsletter I will write about the Kommunalkas—the communal apartments that were a lifelong nightmare which has left its mark on the Russian psyche.

The countdown to the release of HOTEL MOSCOW on June 2nd has begun. Now is the time to pre-order it at a great discount at  Amazon, B&N, iTunes, or even better--support your indie bookstore. (My novels are published in paperback format to keep the price down.)

Thank you, former readers and future friends. I am looking forward to hearing from you,

Talia Carner

www.TaliaCarner.com

P.S. PRE-PUBLICATION REVIEWS:

       Endorsements for the book have been coming from bestselling authors of suspense thrillers. Nelson DeMille wrote: “HOTEL MOSCOW is a wonderful evocation of time and place and a post-Cold War thriller that will keep the reader mesmerized.” 

       Or Kirkus Reviews: “…a compelling narrative of lives lived in dystopia. The novel sheds much-needed light on this turbulent period in Russian history."

       For more pre-publication reviews from best-selling authors Andrew Gross, Tami Hoag, Ellen Mesiter, Rodney Barker, and Jay Neugeboren, please click here.

  

Give Me A Yellow Star

Yellow Jewish star, which all Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis and their allies.

In a departure from using my own words, I am posting a strong letter-to-the-editor written by an Israeli, voicing my outrage over the new wave of anti-Semitism sweeping Europe and which has long reached USA's academic world.

 DOWN WITH THE YELLOW STAR

By Eitan Chitayat (Edited by Dr. Chaim Bernard)
               

             Give me a yellow star. A dreary, cloth patch sewn in the shape of a Star of David that every Jew was forced to wear in Nazi Germany along with every country the Germans conquered; every country in Europe, some even allied with Germany ; every culture looking to expose the hated Jew.
            A yellow star worn by both my parents, while you, Europe, were standing by. That's what I am to you: The guilty Jew. The filthy Jew. The stealing Jew. The disgusting Jew. The less-than-human Jew. The Jew that can only do wrong – bomb innocent Muslim children - for that is, of course, all we do, all we ever aspired to as a nation, a race.
            The yellow star was forced on us. Rammed down our throats. It stood for dishonor and was associated with anti-Semitism as you probably know. It was to be a badge of shame like Hawthorne’s Scarlet letter. But 6 million times worse.
            Give me a yellow star. I want to wear a yellow star above my left breast where six million of my brothers and sisters were forced to don one. I want to walk around with a yellow star on every solitary piece of clothing I own. On my Armani suit, my Nike sweatshirt, Ralph Lauren sweater, my Champion hoodie, my Diesel jeans, my South Beach biker jacket. I’ll even wear it at the beach on my bare chest if I have to.
            I want to walk down the streets of Paris near Le Marais and be seen by you European anti-Semites. Outside the Great Synagogue of Stockholm, the Torah Center in Brussels, the Anna Frank Memorial in Amsterdam, the Holocaust Museum in Berlin, outside the Sigmund Freud House in London.
            I want all of you to see me with it and hear you say, ‘Hey, here comes the Jew’, he’s not just like the rest of us .
He’s just a dirty Jew.
A mass murderer.
He kills Muslim children and then uses their blood for matzah, just like the rest of the Jews.
They carpet bomb innocent people.
They are useless except for their knowledge, their Nobel prizes, and their success.
They kill children, those Jews.
Don’t you know? It’s the Jews who own Hollywood, the media, the banks.
They’re the scum of the earth.
They steal.
Hitler was right.
Let’s go spray-paint swastikas on his grandparents’ graves.
Let’s go beat him up.
Let’s kill him.
Let’s murder a rabbi in Miami or Brussels.

That'll teach them--to exist.

            I want that yellow star. Europe, to me that yellow star is a symbol of almost everything I stand for. It’s a symbol of surviving evil. It’s heritage and knowledge. Tolerance and optimism. It’s strength and confidence in the face of the weakness and insecurity of those not being taught well enough what their mothers should have taught them.
            That yellow star is education, resilience. It’s right over wrong, and it is life. It is testament to all who tragically died wearing it, so that their future surviving brothers and sisters know to never be afraid of who they are again. To never be silent again, not apologize for surviving. Thanks to them and indeed, for them, this yellow badge ceased being a badge of shame a long time ago. It's my badge of honor. I survived your indifference, your stupidity, your inhumaneness, your hatred, and your ignorance.
            For me, it’s a yellow F**k-You-Europe-Star.
            It’s a star that blinds out any other emblem that preaches hatred. It drowns out the form, shape and color of swastikas, the black flags of ISIS and Al Qaeda, and the green of Hamas or the yellow of Hezbollah.
            Before being herded off to the gas chambers around 70 years ago, Jews wearing their yellow star were hearing ‘Kill the Jews’, ‘Heil Hitler’, ‘The only good Jew is a dead Jew’, ‘Stealing Jew!’ – and all that before being ostracized from their communities, stripped of their belongings, property, identities, humanity and eventually, their lives.
            They were hearing words. It happened in many other countries too. Like my father’s country. A country he was expelled from for being a Jew. For being a dirty Jew. It. Always. Begins. With. Words. The same kind of words we’re hearing now here on your social media. On your streets. At demonstrations. In conversations. Words that have nothing to do with Israel. Palestine. Politics. The Middle East or anything.
            You might not be all too happy with ISIS and Hamas, but if you aren’t trying to expose them for who and what they are, then you’re not part of the solution but part of the problem. You know nothing about your own history, nothing about the Islamic conquest of Europe from the year 626 until this very day – the holy Jihad.
            The world’s abuzz right now with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic words. Anti-Semitic words that Jews like myself are used to. I’m talking to you, Dieudonné. Mel Gibson. Roger Waters. And the rest of you ignorant Jew-haters. And I’m talking to you, Radical Islamic leaders, standing behind your pulpits preaching lies and hate and division in the name of Allah. And to you – innocent bystanders in Europe.
            I’m talking to you, supposedly liberal minded people – friends of mine, even – who spend way too much time talking about Israel fighting for its existence in a defensive war, “disproportionally” ( as if the bombing of Dresden, the killing of Bin Laden, the invasion of Berlin by the Russian Army never happened) but very little talking about hundreds of thousands being murdered in Syria. In Iraq. About people being murdered for being followers of any other religion save Islam. Very little talking about ISIS taking over the middle east and putting heads on spikes, shooting people in ditches by the thousands, beheading a journalist on YouTube. Very little time talking about Syrians being gassed or a semi-literate peasant turned Turkish Prime minister spewing the kind of virulent anti-Semitism which ends with only one thing. And don’t forget 9/11, London’s 7/7, Spain’s Madrid train bombings or the Boston Marathon while you’re at it.
            Take a good hard look at my yellow star. Look at where it came from. Look what was done after we, the Jews, were forced to wear it and then ask yourselves, are we doing the same to others? Us Jews? Us Israelis? Are we Jews hellbent on exterminating people? Is that really what we want? Or are others doing that which you think we’re doing – others you refuse to be vocal about nor condemn with a simple post or click of your Like button.
            Here is what the German cleric Pastor Martin Niemöller wrote: “First they burned their books and their synagogues, and I didn't speak out. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me”. He wrote these lines in 1933 - too late – and he referred to the Nazis. But these words ring equally true in view of over 10% of the Muslim population in France, over 8% in Germany, over 6% in England, the neo-nazis in virtually every European country, or the Nazi Udo Voigt holding a seat in the Civil Rights Commission of the European Parliament.
            I, for one, Europe, am not going anywhere. Never again.Though some might wish it, NEVER AGAIN. For anyone else reading this from afar who might agree with what I’m saying, Jews and non-Jews alike, don’t feel sorry for me, my family, my friends. Don’t feel sorry for us. We’re fine and we’re not afraid, and we're here to stay. Don’t be afraid Europe, because I’m not intending to be a victim. None of us are. And I hope you aren’t either. My yellow star is staring extremism in the face.
           Am I cool with the yellow star? You’re damn right I am, totally.
--Eitan Chitayat

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