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.

 

 

Previous Talia's newsletters

 To read author Talia Carner's most recent newsletters, please check:

* March 2024: In the Wake of Churning Waters

* Launched, February 2024

* The Count Down, January 2024 and Pre-Launch

* Special Edition: Late Fall 2023, sent November 1, 2023. To read it online, Late Fall 2023  

* Fall 2023, sent September 14, 2023. To read it online,  Fall 2023  

* Summer 2023, sent July 27, 2023. To read it online, please click on Summer 2023

The Globe’s Women’s Problem

 

By Talia Carner

 (This article was published in Digital Journal in November 2011)

            On November 25, the U.N. again commemorated International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon again urged nations “to help end this pandemic of violence… [in order to] have a more just, peaceful and equitable world.”
            What has changed since 1993 when the U.N. General Assembly adopted resolution 48/104? In 2011, across the globe, women are not only subject to violence, but are still positioned as far inferior to men in every public sphere—political, religious, legal and economic.
            No country is free of “a woman’s problem,” be it full legal rights, maternity care, religious representation, political leadership, education opportunities, or pay equality.
            In South America, under military regimes, poverty is feminized with the highest rate of teenage mothers. In some African nations, maternity death reaches 2,000:1 maternity death in Europe. In the U.S., mothers are disenfranchised and discredited in our courts.
            And what happens in third-world nations stuck in the seventeenth century?
            In the film, The Stoning of Soraya, a man in contemporary Iran wishing to divorce his wife concocts an allegation of infidelity. Using false witnesses in a trial that Soraya is prohibited from attending, she is sentenced to death. As her lower body is buried in the sand, her male relatives and neighbors are her delighted executioners—starting with her own father. The viciousness in which her adolescent son is the first to throw a stone that hits her forehead reflects the misogyny indoctrinated into boys’ minds. It is also linked to global terrorism: Bloodthirsty societies such as Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi-Arabia that are obsessed with women’s bodies’ “purity” are also the countries that produced most terrorists and terrorist acts of the 20th and 21st centuries.
            A child-bride forced into sexual slavery in the Middle East, Asia or South America may dream about fleeing the marriage into which she was sold. But the world outside is more cruel toward an illiterate women. Courageous girls who flee the rice fields of Vietnam or the steppes of Siberia for the promise of jobs abroad, are likely to fall into sex trafficking rings. Every year, one- to two-million girls and women are ensnared into brothels from Berlin to Calcutta.
            The atrocities visited upon women are highlighted in mass rape used as a tool of war. From East Timor to Sierra Leone, wars between nations are won by breaking women, shattering nuclear families, tearing apart villages and wrecking a nation’s spirit. But when people crawl out of the ashes, mores are shattered. In African nations, men expect sex simply by overpowering a female, making gender violence common even in schools.
            Then there is the burning of brides in India, the mass gendercide of girls in China, and clitoridectomy of two million girls a year in Africa and Muslim nations.
            What is the answer for this bleak state of global gender discrimination that results in female misery and death?

            Education.
            When women are educated, they delay marriage age, have fewer children, seek to educate them, present role models for their daughters and a fresh view of women for their sons.
            When women are educated, their earning capacity increases, they are more likely to start their own business ventures, and have a better chance to pull out of poverty.           
            When women are educated, they help better other women’s and children’s lives, seek leadership roles and run for political offices. They use the Internet to reach beyond their narrow world and begin to resist extreme forms of religious fundamentalism.
            Women are not the problem, but rather than solution. Had society heeded the 1993’s resolutions of eliminating violence against women, women, one-half the world’s population would have helped society double its forward move toward development and prosperity.

            # # #
            Author Talia Carner’s most recent award-winning novels often deal with social issues and the plights of women and children. Please check www.TaliaCarner.com .

Israel, That Pesky Little Country

 

           

(This article was published in Digital Journal in 2011. Sadly, it is still true today. The title was borrowed from a dismissive UK official's comment at a dinner-table talk.) 

If a green-eyed Martian landed at the United Nation building, he would report back to Mars about the wonderful countries populating Planet Earth. Specifically, his account might describe the block of fifty-six Muslim nations entrusted in making this planet a peaceful habitat for all humans: Lebanon is on the Security Council, Libya on the Human Rights Council, Sudan on the Commission of Human Rights, Egypt and Pakistan on Economic and Social Council, Tunisia and Indonesia on Population Council, and Iran appointed to the Commission on the Status of Women.
            But then, he would report about that little pesky country that causes so much trouble. Although humans on Planet Earth are grouped into hundreds of countries, half of all the United Nation’s resolutions have been condemning that pesky Israel, yet she would not be humbled. Among all its neighbors, she is the only one that permits her citizens to sue their government, her press is free to criticize her, and women are equal under the law. In fact, she is the only country where “honor killing”—the neighbors’ family values—is outlawed. 

            Anti-Israel winds have been blowing and gathering force around the globe to the point that it is politically correct to spread misinformation and outright lies. From the academia, to polite society, Liberal circles and the press, it is politically correct to demonize Israel and to apply a multitude of double standards when setting her apart from either civilized nations or her supposed victims, the Palestinians. It is politically correct to replace facts with hate-filled narrative.
            How do you know when criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism? Nathan Sharansky offers the simple 3D test: Double Standards, Demonization, Delegitimization.   

            Double standard: Over 30 hot spots of human misery can be found around the globe. Yet those with bleeding hearts for human suffering focus on one that is very low on this list while ignoring the heinous trafficking of children in Southeast Asia, the mass rape of women in Africa, the murders of civilians under military regimes in South America, and the targeted persecution, expulsion and killing of Christians in Muslim countries.
            Most important, they also ignore the root causes of the Palestinians’ suffering:

• The Arab League nations refused to accept the partition plan of 1947 and instead declared a war on the nascent Israeli state, creating the Arab refugee problem.
• After World War II, over ten million European refugees and 750,000 Jews from Arab countries have been settled. Arab nations have steadfastly refused to help or absorb Palestinian refugees, then also numbering 750,000.  
• Today, Lebanon still denies Palestinians any basic rights, from owning real estate to holding over fifty types of jobs, including profession such as doctors and lawyers. Children of Palestinian refugees are denied public education.
• Egypt expels them from its midst.  
• King Hussein of Jordan, whose constituency’s majority is Palestinian, massacred 10,000 of them in Black September—by far more killed than Israel has ever been accountable for, which was in response to attacks on her citizens.
• For decades, more Palestinians kill one another each year than in any Israeli military action. Their Fatah and the Hamas are arch enemies, and their disputes are being resolved weekly with blood shed.
• Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were entitled to Israeli citizenship if they married an Israeli citizen, or reunited with their families inside the country. (Israel had to halt this practice when it was proven that many suicide bombers gained an Israeli ID card under the auspice of family reunification.) Not so in Arab countries; most impose severe travel restrictions on Palestinians—often denying them entry under any circumstances.
• Billions of Euros donated by European countries for Palestinian territories’ development show up either as mansions right in the heart of Gaza or in Swiss banks of the Palestinian elite.
• The Palestinian Authority has full and exclusive rule over the populated areas of the West Bank, including security. Israeli military is not present inside Palestinian towns.
• In a Democratic election supervised by former US president Jimmy Carter, citizens of Gaza elected Hamas, a group listed in US-terror list, that now brutally suppresses them.
• Hamas uses civilians as "human shields,” placing women and children in harm's way—especially in those areas from which they launch rockets into Israel—thus deliberately creating civilian Palestinian casualties.   

Focusing on Israel’s “oppression” as the cause for the suffering of the Palestinians rather than on the Arab countries that actually created the refugee problem and have exploited it ever since—along with the brutal rule of the Palestinians’ own elected ruling party—is nothing more than demagoguery, bigotry and cynicism. Israel merely controls its own borders.  She has only blocked Palestinians’ free entrance since 2001 rise of the intifada violence and subsequent thousands of terror acts against her population. Even today, each year over 180,000 Palestinians are treated in Israeli hospitals. Israel has never blocked the supply of electricity, water, phone services or the movement of food and medical supply trucks into Gaza.
            The moment that the shower of thousands of Hamas rocket attacks upon Israeli towns ceases, Israel will reopen the borders and will share her knowledge and progress with the Palestinians—as she did before.  Prior to the 2001 intifada, the International Monetary Fund reported that per capita income in Gaza and the West Bank was the highest in the Arab world because Palestinian workers were employed in Israel and enjoyed minimum legal pay and other benefits guaranteed by law.
            It is important to note that the Palestinians’ misery is not total and complete. There is no humanitarian crisis as anti-Israel propaganda claims. Photographs shown in the media omit Gaza’s new shopping mall, modern office buildings, markets filled with produce, neighborhoods of villas, and beaches crowded with vacationing families.  

            Demonization: From cartoons to U.N. resolutions, it is the ultimate anti-Semitism to continually compare Israel to Nazism. Zionism means the right of Jewish people for their homeland in the land of Zion. It is anti-Semitism to disparage the word or to use the name Zionist to mean evil.

·         No Israeli military campaign has ever deliberately targeted civilians.

·         Israeli soldiers do not rape Palestinian women.

·         In Haiti after the earthquake, Israel was the first country to set up operating rooms whose goals was not the harvesting of organs.

·         Israel cannot send sharks to the beaches of Egypt as the Egyptian government claimed.

·         Israel is the only country in modern times that has never bombed enemy capitols in retaliation for bombs dropped upon her own civilians.

·         It is demonization to compare Palestinian refugee camps and Auschwitz.

·         Israel constitutes less than 1 per cent of the land mass of the Middle East, and it is demonization to position her as the cause of all the region’s myriad problems.

·         It is demonization to call Israel an “apartheid” country.

o   Israel has an Arab population of one million (twenty per cent of the population) that are full citizens and do not live as Palestinians under the Palestinian Authority.

o   As citizens of the State of Israel, they are the only Arabs in the Middle East living in democracy with representation in the parliament.

o   Due to medical care and social benefits, these Israeli-Arabs’ life expectancy is the highest and infant mortality the lowest in the Arab world.

o   Arabic is one of two official languages of Israel.

o   Arabs serve in the Knesset, representing their people, are professors in Israel’s universities, and work in the professional fields, especially as doctors and pharmacists.

            Perpetuating lies about the Israel is nothing more than demonizing a democratic country that has shown respect to its citizens of all nationalities and reverence for their religious institutions.

• 
              With such double standard and demonizing, the route to delegitimization of Israel is short:
              In November 2010, the UN's cultural body, UNESCO, recognized two ancient Jewish sites, Rachel’s Tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—as “Palestinian,” thus severing Jewish history from its people. This farce is a delegitimization of not just Israel as a state, but more so of the Jews and their history. A nation which negotiates away her cradle of history is giving away her future.
              Yet, there are people who consider themselves fair-minded while willing to erase a nation’s history and replace it with myths.
              When the Ottoman Empire came to an end in 1918, forty countries were formed in its collapse. Only one of them, Israel— mandated by The League of Nations as a “homeland for the Jews” and since then truncated to a fraction of its originally mandated size—is being put again into question. On the other hand, Palestinian nationalism was not even a contender in 1918—or any time before 1967. Now, those who call themselves Palestinians—a name that used to indicate the Jews in the land—claim to have lived there all along.  

      Is it really so?
In 1867, Mark Twain described the land he visited as "…dismal scenery …It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land… Palestine is desolate and unlovely…."

• Muhammad never set foot in Jerusalem or in the Land of Israel.
• Jerusalem was never a capital of any Arab entity.
• Jerusalem was not mentioned in the 1964 PLO's Covenant.
• The “liberation of Palestine” only became a cause after the 1967 war, during which Israel displaced Amman's rule in the West Bank and Cairo's in Gaza.
• Arabs never established a Palestinian state or advocated one prior to the Six-Day War in 1967.  

And Jerusalem?

The 1900 census listed the city’s population at 46,500; 28,200 Jews, 8,760 Christians, 8,600 Muslims. Muslims were never a majority in Jerusalem, and Jerusalem was never a Muslim holy site. Demanding it as a capital is a late 20^th century invention designed to both delegitimize Israel and to anchor Palestinian claim to all of Israel.  
            And finally, the argument of occupation: Israel, so goes popular anti-Israel fallacy, should withdraw from land it occupies illegally. Leaving aside the issue of wars launched by the Arab countries which they lost, thus losing the land to Israel, their “illegal” assertion quotes a distorted U.N. resolution 242.  
       Passed in 1967,  UN Resolution 242 calls for Israel to return "territories" captured during its defensive war of 1967. The words "all" and "the" were proposed by those who advocated a complete return, but the U.S. and Great Britain, which opposed that view, prevailed. More importantly, even partial return of captured territories is conditioned in resolution 242 on "termination of all claims of belligerency" and "acknowledgment of the sovereignty… of every state in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."  
            Resolution 242 does not mention the rights of non-states, such as the Palestinian Authority, Hamas or Hezbollah, the latter two of which do not accept the conditions of the resolution. It is unequivocally wrong for the Security Council retroactively to rewrite Resolution 242, which is the foundation for a two-state solution—Israel and Palestine—forty-four years after it was enacted.
            Being pro-Palestinian does not mean to be anti-Israel. Israel has never objected to the creation of a Palestinian state. It agreed to it in 1947, 56, 73, 93 and in every talk in between and since. Being pro-Palestinian means supporting a free, democratic Palestinian state that does not teach its children to hate and would never use its most vulnerable citizens as human shields.   
            However, rather of accepting the two-state solution, the Palestinian charter that called for the destruction of Israel was never reversed, even after the agreed-upon 1993 Oslo Accord. Instead, several Palestinian terror groups, including Hamas, are forging conceptual and tactical bonds with al-Qaeda.  
            What government around the globe is expected to passively render its population vulnerable to mass-slaughter? Would we, in the United States, sit quietly by as rockets rained down upon American cities from terrorist sanctuaries outside our southern borders?  
            International law is not a suicide pact. Yet that is what the calls for boycott and divestiture are, which makes them anti-Semitic to the core. Interestingly, self-servingly, the people and institutions demanding to punish Israel for defending herself by boycotting her products do not divest themselves from their own computers, cell phones or voice mail that run on Israeli chips. They would not give up on using banking systems that run on Israeli communication technologies, nor do they stop treating their families to medical care for cancer, Alzheimer, or multiple sclerosis due to research done by Israeli scientists and doctors.
            After learning the facts, the green-eyed Martian will report to Mars that as a democracy, Israel thrives on criticism. She has the tools and institutions that permit and support critique and incorporate the lessons into her life—she has one of the strongest supreme court in the world with an impeccable record of remedying social, political, economic and even military ills.

            Criticism of Israel should be comparable, contextual, constructive. It should also give credence to the Israel’s extraordinary progress these past 63 years, (now 75 years) starting from ground zero, being inundated by wars and the subject of scorn by a world tolerant of the murder of Jews—and ready to blame them for their own demise.

# # #

Talia Carner's updated note: A year ago, in September 2022, I travelled to the area around Gaza, and looked over Gaza City. It is not the "open jail" or "concentration camp" that is pushed by propaganda. Here is a photo of city filled with high rises, office buildings, residential neighborhood, and lots of villas. (It is spread far to the right and left of this photo.) It is not as crowded as some other cities, especially in the Arab world, where some cities (like half of Amman in Jordan) don't even have running water.

Gaza City along the Mediterenean

 

Author Talia Carner’s next novel, THE BOY WITH THE STAR TATTOO will be published by HarperCollins in February 2024. www.TaliaCarner.com

             # # #

The above article was culled from various sources, among them:
Myths and Facts: http://mythsandfacts.org/
Middle East Forum: http://www.meforum.org/
The Israel Project: http://www.theisraelproject.org
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs: http://www.jcpa.org
Jewish Virtual Library- Modern History: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/jewhist1.html
Honest Reporting: http://honestreporting.com/
World Jewish Congress: http://worldjewishcongress.org/
CAMERA: http://www.camera.org/
Canadian Institute for Jewish Research: http://www.isranet.org/ 
Zionist Organization of America: http://www.zoa.org/ 
Stand With Us: http://standwithus.com/
Anti-Defamation League: http://www.adl.org
American Jewish Committee: http://www.ajc.org/
Middle East and Terrorism: http://israelagainstterror.blogspot.com/

Summer is here--and you get a sneak preview!

I was planning to mail this newsletter last month with a big hello to summer! However, I had to wait for the green light from HarperCollins to give you, my subscribers, a sneak peek of the cover, so weeks passed by....

In the meantime, judging from my friends’ personal reports and social media postings, it seems that most of you alternate between international travel, lazy beach days, and summer feasts of food and music. We all deserve this break.

It’s also time to get on with our “to-read” list. I’ve been enjoying some great books, fiction and non-fiction. Please check my over-230 reviews on GoodReads.com under my name.

         

A sneak peek before the industry's big reveal:

       

The cover of  THE BOY WITH THESTAR TATTOO!

 There is a special moment in my the long cycle of conceiving an idea, researching, and letting it mature on the page into a full-length novel—and then revising and editing it dozens of times. That moment is when it all comes together in the vision of the artist who creates the cover. For years I submerge myself in the story, visualizing every character, hearing the dialogue as it is spoken, and watching complete scenes as if they take place on stage. Nevertheless, whatever visual I create in my head of the cover art, it is never as vivid as when a talented artist who comes into the process with fresh eyes crystalizes it.

The first thing you notice about any book’s cover is that its design reflects the genre: In a glance you discern a romance novel from a murder suspense. There are also trends in book publishing. My bestselling novel JERUSALEM MAIDEN (Harper 2011) featured a split cover art with four separate elements.

I prefer the more recent trend with a picture that tells a whole story, hinting about past, present and future. In this new cover of THE BOY WITH THE STAR TATTOO, you identify a mother and you sense that she is poor and from times bygone. What about her state of mind? Even without seeing her face, you can read her emotions…. You also see the baby’s foot with the telltale Star-of-David. You see the vast ocean with its association to immigration. And of course, there’s the Saar boat in the horizon….

           

HarperCollins description of the novel:

"In the vein of Pam Jenoff and Kristen Harmel comes an epic historical novel of ingenuity and daring, of love and loss weaving two yet-untold events set in France. One takes place in 1946 in the aftermath of the Holocaust, when agents from Eretz Israel roamed the European countryside to rescue hidden Jewish orphans (Youth Aliyah). The second is set in 1969, about the daring escape of the boats of Cherbourg, in Normandy, which were commissioned and paid for by Israel but whose delivery was blocked by a French arms embargo.

"Sharon, the assistant to an Israeli naval officer stationed in Cherbourg, is set to unravel the mystery of his journey from a French village to Israel. As she traces it to the tragedy of a mother who lost her baby in the mayhem of war, she is unprepared for the moral dilemma she must face upon solving the puzzle."

A beta reader has added: "The human drama of THE BOY WITH THE STAR TATTOO offers a back-to-basics narrative about the crucial role played by the rescuers of traumatic Jewish WWII orphans who’d lost everything. The novel is also a poignant reminder of the courageous spirit of those who committed themselves to Israel’s survival and the bravery and resourcefulness with which they faced the existential challenges twenty years after her establishment."

         

Surrounding myself with love....

Before I get back to my upcoming book, I'd like to share with you some personal stuff: In April, I hosted a party in Tel-Aviv for my closest friends and family for Tyler’s bar-mitzvah.

In May, I celebrated a milestone birthday, and was greatly moved at the elegant, yet intimate dinner with my wonderful Florida friend

I am so lucky to have roots on both sides of the ocean!

         

The buzz is getting louder--and I'm planning my book-tour appearances:

          There is no greater pleasure for this author than to share her work and passion with appreciative readers—you!

          Here are the plans, so far, for the launch of THE BOY WITH THE STAR TATTOO in February 2024:

• Join me at an open-to-all Zoom party (A few dates and links will be posted on my website under Book Tour).
• I will be based in Boca Raton, Florida, through April 2024. I will travel from there locally and also fly to some major literary events.
• I will be based in Long Island, NY, as of May 2024, from where I can cover the Tri-State area (NY, NJ, CT) and beyond.
• I always enjoy the ferry ride across the Sound with my husband Ron to visit groups in New England.
• We also plan a road trip to Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia, and Southern Pennsylvania.
• Member organizations of The JewishBook Council can count me in! Next year, I will be listed as one of their touring authors.
• As a seasoned Zoombie, I will be delighted to Zoom to communities’ and groups across the country.

I can’t wait to visit your community in person or virtually. Please contact my event coordinator, Jim Walters at MecoxHudson@gmail.com or (617)329-5651.

         

You may pre-order THE BOY WITH THE STAR TATTOO!

Pre-ordering helps shoot a book up the bestselling list, so I would be enormously grateful if you join my team by preordering it either on Amazon or B&N:

And please do not forget your favorite independent bookstore! Not only you'll support it, but you will introduce my new novel to the owner and staff.

         

Salute with me July milestones in women's history:

 (Note: My newsletter was mailed in July)

July 19, 1848 – Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott spearheaded the first women’s rights convention in American History.

July 2, 1937 – Amelia Earhart’s plane is lost in the Pacific Ocean near Howland Island.

July 20, 1942 – Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps' first class (WAAC) begins at Fort Des Moines, IA.

July 6, 1957 – Althea Gibson is the first African American woman to win a Wimbledon title in women’s tennis singles.

July 2, 1964 – President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act; Title VII prohibits sex discrimination in employment.

July 2, 1979 – The Susan B. Anthony dollar is released.

July 7, 1981 – President Reagan nominates Sandra Day O’Connor as the first woman Supreme Court Justice.

July 12, 1984 – Geraldine Ferraro (D-New York) the first female to run for VP of the US with Walter Mondale (D-Minnesota).

 

Summer reading: My emotional-suspense novels:

How often do I hear "I read your book (which one?) and it was wonderful!"

I then remind the appreciative reader that I have had FIVE different heart-wrenching suspense novels, and "if you liked one, you are in for a treat." In fact, I know from thousands of readers' feedback that each gives a great thought-provoking reading experience!

 Please read the first couple of chapters of each on my website.                            

JERUSALEM MAIDEN --Spanning from Jerusalem under the Ottoman rule to Paris during the avant-garde era, a feisty young woman struggles between her passion for art and her faith.

CHINA DOLL--An American music icon on a concert tour in China tries to save a baby from death--only to face the wrath of the world's two superpowers.

HOTEL MOSCOW-- While empowering women in lawless post-communist Moscow, an American businesswoman must face both the mafia and her own past mistakes.

THE THIRD DAUGHTER--Lured from Europe to Buenos Aires in the 1890s, a valiant Jewish girl struggles to free herself from bondage and bring down the powerful traffickers' ring.

PUPPET CHILD--When the US system fails her daughter, a brave mother takes matters into her own hands in a race against time and political corruption.

  

 Thank you readers, book clubs, reviewers, and event organizers who continue to select my books, tell others, praise them, post reviews--and invite me to present!

        

Have a great rest of the summer!

I am looking forward to continuing to connect with you through the spoken and written word.

          Talia

          www.TaliaCarner.com

          AuthorTalia@aol.com

 

       
P.S. Galleys!!! Soon, HarperCollins will send out galleys of THE BOY WITH THE STAR TATTOO to book reviewers, media hosts, and bloggers. If you are one and would like to receive a copy, please write to me with details of your venue—publication, podcast, TV program, literary event—and its audience size so I can pass it along to their publicist.

ONE PEOPLE

 

With Passover being celebrated this week, I'd like to share with you my essay that was previously published in The Jewish Book Council blog:

 ONE PEOPLE

            It’s breakfast at Club Med in Mexico. I select a white-chocolate bread, a croissant, and a slice of banana cake for the last time; as of tomorrow, my family and I must stretch my box of matzos for the remaining four days of our stay. Surrounded by a merry crowd in bathing suits and scant coverings—standard daytime apparel here—my heart is heavy. This evening, instead of a Passover Seder at a table laden with fine china, polished silver, and sparkling crystal, I must improvise a Seder on the beach. What kind of message am I giving my children when opting to exchange our most important holiday for a resort vacation?

            I approach the Chef-de-Village and ask for a secluded spot where my family and another Jewish couple we’ve met here could conduct a pre-sunset ceremony. He points to a beautiful thatched-roof area over a dance floor, facing the sea. “Anything else I can do?” he asks.

            “A bottle of sweet red wine, please?” Besides the box of matzos and a silver kiddush cup, I packed a dozen Haggadahs and baby-blue yarmulkes stamped with the date of our youngest daughter’s bat-mitzvah. I write down my recipe for charoset, a chopped mix of peeled apples, walnuts, pecans and dates, all flavored with cinnamon, honey and red wine.

            Moments later, I am surprised to hear him over the PA announcing that all who wish to participate in a Seder, should meet at five o’clock at the designated area.

            I cringe and glance around at the crowd, busy picking from mounds of fried bacon and pork sausages. Is someone cracking a comment about the invasion of the Hebs? No one seems to pay attention, and I decide that throughout history, Jews in far more dire conditions managed to celebrate Passover. So will my family, down to the lengthy reading of the Haggadah, the yearly retelling of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt.

            At lunch, a sous-chef presents me with an industrial-size baking tray filled with charoset. Imagining that most of this huge quantity will be baked in tomorrow’s pies, I dip a spoon into the mix. The familiar taste of Passover festivity is already inside me. “May I also have a plate with a hard-boiled egg, a lamb bone, horseradish, and sprigs of parsley?” I ask, describing the traditional Passover plate that contains the symbols of liberation of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. “And a cup of salt water?”

             The sun is still high when I drag my family off the beach to shower and dress in what passes in Club Med for evening attire—shorts and Polo shirts for men; white slacks or gauzy dresses for women.

            At five o’clock we arrive at the dance platform, carrying my Passover paraphernalia. To my annoyance someone must have double-booked the place, as dozens of his guests, dressed for a pre-dinner party are hanging about. “Now we must go look for another quiet spot,” I mutter, and go search for the sous-chef to locate my tray of charoset and Passover plate.

            In a cluster of people, I spot the couple we have invited and wave.

            As they wave back, some guests turn toward me, smiling. Only then it hits me: All these people are here for my little Seder!

            As my husband counts them as they stream in: a hundred and forty. We order more bottles of wine and crates of glassware from the kitchen. We place the Seder plate in the center of a table covered with a white tablecloth and dedicate my kiddush cup for Elijah. We break my matzos into the smallest pieces, and ladle charoset onto serving plates.

            Then we distribute the twelve Haggadahs—the story of Passover told in biblical Hebrew. I watch as Jews from South American countries speaking Spanish and Portuguese, Jews from France and Austria and Israel, speaking French, German and Hebrew, and Jews from North America, Australia and Great Britain speaking English, all squeeze close around their respective single Haggadah. A man from Venezuela assumes the role of the Seder leader—luckily his pronunciation is the Sephardi version, that of spoken Hebrew, not the archaic Ashkenazi version of most USA synagogues—and we begin taking turns reading aloud, with the congregants responding when called to do so. The Sephardi chant their melodious renditions of some of the hymns, and the Ashkenazi respond with their musical versions. Regardless of our home language, we all utter the same ancient Hebrew words, recite the same sages’ arguments, and sing the same prayers. Together, we retell the narrative of liberation from slavery and urge our children to it on to their offspring, so generations to come will also appreciate freedom.

            I examine the men’s heads covered with baseball caps, dinner napkins, and my dozen yarmulkes in baby-blue like the undulating sea beyond. For one hour, strangers to one another, we are connected by one culture and unite through the ancient language of our ancestors in a tradition that transcends all geo-political barriers, that has stood up to centuries of persecutions, pogroms, and repeated attempts at our annihilation.

            “Next year in Jerusalem,” we chant together, expressing our shared vision of the place that for two-thousand years has anchored Jewish faith. For one hour we reassert to ourselves that we are one people. My people.

  # # #

Novelist Talia Carner is formerly the publisher of Savvy Woman magazine and a lecturer at international women’s economic forums. She is a committed supporter of global human rights and has spearheaded projects centered on the subjects of female plight and women’s activism. Her five novels have been hailed for exposing society’s ills, the latest of which is THE THIRD DAUGHTER (HarperCollins, September 2019.)

            Talia Carner has given over 400 keynote speeches and over 300 Zoom presentations about the social issues behind her novels to civic, educational and religious organizations. She lives in New York and Florida.

Talia Tells Tales--Late Summer 2021

 

Many of us are breathing a bit easier....

Not back in Paris yet.... The battle is far from over, yet compared with the previous months of total isolation, many of us have been picking up the pieces--hopefully with extra precautions.... We see friends and dine out; some step back into deserted offices and gyms; we hug our children and cousins; we schedule medical check-ups--and greet neighbors with a smile. But as many of my friends and readers tell me, most have gained a new perspective with shifting priorities and interests. But one thing remains constant: Books are here to stay!

Celebrate with me the second anniversary of THE THIRD DAUGHTER:

September marks the second anniversary of the novel's launch, and since then THE THIRD DAUGHTER has garnered thousands of rave reviews, The Jewish Book Council Award seal--and invitations for me to present at over 320 events (mostly on Zoom). I've received many emails from readers who would have liked to hear my talks, but do not belong to any of the clubs or communities that have scheduled me. Therefore, I will be giving an anniversary Zoom talk and open Q&A to respond to your questions and to share insights about the novel, from its historical background to the creative process of shaping research into a compelling novel--and the anti sex-trafficking activism the book has inspired.

Please join me for an open Zoom chat on Tuesday, September 14th at 7:00 PM (ET). Please click to register How cool is this?

A-Word-A-Day calendar has selected to quote from my novel, HOTEL MOSCOW, when introducing its subscribers to the phrase "golden parachute." I thought it was super cool....

My next novel? In progress....

Yes, I've been working on another novel for a few years, since the idea for a historical Jewish novel set in France hit me in 2017 while I was still writing THE THIRD DAUGHTER. I ended up conducting 20 interviews in Israel, the US, and France--including four trips to France within three pre-pandemic years. The novel, titled THE BOY WITH THE STAR TATTOO, has found its groove, but I must return to France (perhaps October?) to tie up many physical details. In the meantime, I enjoy editing it on the beach. The novel covers two separate events in Normandy and the Loire Valley. (No publishing date yet before 2023.)

September milestones in women's history:

2019 pre-COVID meeting at the UN Commission on the Status of Women. September 14, 1964 – Helen Keller receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom September 20, 1973 – Billie Jean King defeats Bobby Riggs in the battle of the sexes tennis match September 25, 1981 – Sandra Day O’Connor is sworn in as the first woman U.S. Supreme Court Justice

Some of my novels tell unique stories of women's history: JERUSALEM MAIDEN (lives of Jewish women in traditional Jerusalem, entrusted with the impossible mission of saving world Jewry), HOTEL MOSCOW (the trials and challenges for Russian women during transition from communism), and THE THIRD DAUGHTER (exposing our most painful chapter of legal sex trafficking).

Some in-person events resume, but also a new hybrid format! Since the start of the pandemic, I've presented 300 Zoom talks!

Some groups are moving into in-person gatherings, but enjoy a long-distance author talk. Members get together, but the author is projected via Zoom! Dispersed communities that could not previously afford to fly authors across the country (or authors' time did not permit such trips) are continuing their programming via Zoom.

If you're considering an outreach program for your membership, please contact my event coordinator, Helaine Denenberg, at MecoxHudson@gmail.com or (617)329-5651 for our flyer of speaking topics.

NOTE: Audible promotion on Labor Day weekend for the THE THIRD DAUGHTER! Watch out for a Labor Day promotion, under "Easy Listening," at Audible.

Thank you for your enthusiasm and support! Forward to a Friend

Each week I receive heart-warming emails from readers. There is no greater pleasure for an author than to share her work with an appreciative audience. Thousands of readers post reviews. Here's one of over 3,000 on GoodReads.com: "I enjoyed every minute of this book! Talia is an outstanding writer. Her writing flows and captivates the reader. The characters are well developed and will evoke either deep affection or enmity. Talia is a master at her craft. Read this book for enjoyment and a little-known history that needs to be told." I am looking forward to a promising Fall 2021--and to connecting with you through the spoken and written word, a gift that nothing can snatch away from us! Wishing my Jewish readers and friends a happy and healthy New Year! Talia www.TaliaCarner.com AuthorTalia@aol.com 

P.S. A reminder to post reviews as your gift to any author who's given you hours of engagement. (Here are the links to post reviews for THE THIRD DAUGHTER on Amazon and GoodReads.) P.P.S. If you have not yet read THE THIRD DAUGHTER, please check out the first chapter on my website. I encourage you to support your local indie store, but it is also available on B&N, Amazon, and iTunes--as well as in LARGE PRINT!