Jennifer Lang, LANDED: A Yogi's Memoir in Pieces & Poses
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[0:45]Jennifer Lang is the author of landed a yogi's memoir in pieces and poses.
[0:49]Jennifer is a San Francisco Bay Area Transplant in Tel Aviv.
[0:52]In September 2023, she gave birth to her first book, Places We Left Behind, a memoir
[0:58]in miniature.
[0:59]In October 2024, she welcomed landed a yogi's memoir in pieces and poses into a different
[1:05]world.
[1:06]Her writing focuses on identity, voice, faith belonging, and home, graduate of Vermont College
[1:12]of Fine Arts.
[1:13]Jennifer was an assistant editor at Brevity Journal.
[1:16]You can read more at www.israelwritersstudio.com.
[1:21]Welcome, Jennifer.
[1:22]Thanks so much for coming on Totally Book to Zibi to talk about landed a yogi's memoir
[1:27]in pieces and poses.
[1:29]Congratulations.
[1:30]Thank you for having me.
[1:31]Oh, it's my pleasure.
[1:33]I found this book interesting on so many levels.
[1:35]The structure and form of it.
[1:37]The way that you use the page and symbols and, you know, short chapters and just the
[1:44]way that you tell the story, interweaving timelines, all of it in the way that you do it,
[1:49]but also the content of what you're sharing and how in these brief little moments you
[1:55]are sharing endless amounts about your marriage, your backgrounds, your mothering, Israel.
[2:03]There's just so much in here and it was a very powerful read, so congratulations.
[2:08]Thank you.
[2:09]Why don't you do a better job explaining sort of what the book is about and what made
[2:14]you write it in the way that you did?
[2:16]Sure.
[2:17]So really truly, I'm very grateful for you having me here and for letting me speak about
[2:22]this book.
[2:23]It's a hard book to put into this world.
[2:26]It elevates it from, I wrote this book targeting it to a non-Jewish audience to teach
[2:32]them to show that not teach, to show them what life is like in Israel.
[2:35]This very misunderstood country to, wow, I put this book into this world in a during
[2:43]a terrible war, during a time of rising anti-Semitism, having no idea that what I'd
[2:49]be up against to share this book because now I share it with fear.
[2:53]So this book, it landed a Yogi's memoir in pieces and poses is my seven-year search and
[2:59]then some on and off a yoga mat for answers to hard questions about my mixed marriage,
[3:09]midlife hormones, and many nests, and making life in the Middle East.
[3:15]So that's it in a nutshell.
[3:16]It's moving forward timeline.
[3:18]It's a linear story that takes you through the present tense and through yoga poses.
[3:23]My time on the mat, both as teacher and as a student, and it jumps back in time, as
[3:29]you mentioned, thematically.
[3:31]When I feel like I've mentioned something that requires a deeper dive.
[3:36]So for some people, I can see with reviews, comments that it seems like a really mixed
[3:42]up-stream, like kind of haphazard structure, but it's really, really, really calculated.
[3:51]When I jump back in time, it's not random.
[3:54]And the whole goal started because I moved to Israel in 2011 from New York with my French
[3:59]husband and our two younger daughters following our oldest who was going into these really
[4:05]army, making that decision at 18.
[4:08]And my yoga students in New York responded when I said that I was thinking of blogging,
[4:13]which in 2011 was a big thing still.
[4:16]You know, I think today we call it just sub-stacking.
[4:19]And I mentioned that I was thinking of doing this to share about my new Israeli life, what
[4:25]they'd be interested, and I was inundated, inundated by interest, blown away by the interest.
[4:30]And most of these people weren't Jewish.
[4:33]And that's where the whole thing started for me of, oh, I have some time.
[4:38]I think to tell, I have something to share.
[4:41]So that became my mission and my writing that I've been doing for the past, what is that,
[4:46]13 years?
[4:48]So that's that.
[4:50]Well, first of all, the book shows how to kind of negotiate with a spouse because your
[4:59]resolution on to where you want to live has been interesting because you have jumped around
[5:03]a lot.
[5:04]Give each other a few years in this place.
[5:06]I'll do this for you for a few years.
[5:08]Like, I don't know that I could do that, I don't know that I could like suck it up for
[5:13]a few years.
[5:14]And I know you weren't always happy.
[5:15]And you are open about that, like you don't necessarily want to be where you are sometimes.
[5:20]And yet you do it because you love your husband and this is the deal.
[5:24]And how did it feel to writing all of that, which I imagine is mostly, you know, in your
[5:31]private spaces, right?
[5:32]But now it's become a thing like how does he feel about it and all of that?
[5:36]Well, I don't know if you read the first book called Places We Left Behind, a memoir and
[5:40]miniature, which is really, really, really about our 21 year search for home.
[5:46]It's much more, it's also linear, it's also short chapters, it's also experimental
[5:50]prose, which is what I call this.
[5:52]I call this experimental playful prose.
[5:55]And it's much shorter in length.
[5:58]And it's really like a love letter to my husband and an apology letter to myself.
[6:05]Because while we're in this marriage and we're moving and we're trying to figure out how
[6:09]to be whole and happy in the same place and we're parenting, we're growing our family,
[6:16]but something else is going on.
[6:17]And that's something else has to do with me and my identity and what happened early,
[6:21]before getting married, which was my traditionally Jewish French husband who grew up,
[6:27]when I say traditionally Jewish French, it already means something so different to an American
[6:32]Jew who grew up eating bacon and pork and shrimp and having no real sense of the Sabbath.
[6:38]He grew up with a sense of Sabbath, observing it every week, not to the same extent that
[6:42]he started to do in his early 20s when I met him.
[6:46]He grew up in a kosher home separating milk from meat.
[6:49]He grew up eating in non kosher restaurants but never ordering meat or chicken or shellfish,
[6:54]all these different things that were not part of me, my identity.
[6:58]And when we were 23 and really, really like deep, you know, stupid and infatuated,
[7:04]he asked me if I would keep the Sabbath his way.
[7:08]And I said yes, because I was so stupid and infatuated.
[7:12]I said I would try.
[7:14]And so really that decision, that request on his part and that decision on mine that
[7:20]wasn't a very thought-out decision, that's really where I looked back, I looked back at
[7:28]the right while writing that first book and realized I had to stop blaming him, pointing
[7:35]a finger at him, because I said yes.
[7:39]And that first book ended up being, and it makes me teary, an apology letter to my younger
[7:44]self.
[7:45]I realized I had to take responsibility for that, yes.
[7:50]I never realized that.
[7:51]And all the years therapy with him, which we, that's also in the first book, I'd never
[7:56]realized it.
[7:57]So that's caring through also, so search for home, but also search for self.
[8:03]I wanted myself back and I didn't know how to get it.
[8:07]So it was hard, an answer, a short answer to your question, H-A-R-D, it was just hard.
[8:13]And there was a lot of, you know, I think I also looked back and think, wow, I think
[8:17]I was just angry, but it was a low, low simmering resentment.
[8:23]And I was just carrying it from place to place.
[8:25]And it was with me at home because I was uncomfortable in my own home, raising my family,
[8:32]raising my children in a school system I didn't like.
[8:37]I didn't want to, and that's, so that's much more present in the first book.
[8:44]I tried to move away from it in a second because the decision to return to Israel in 2011
[8:50]came after years of therapy during which I brought to the table, if I give you your country
[8:56]back, the place where we had met and married and he really wanted to live after an unintentional
[9:02]16 years in America where I wanted to be, then I wanted myself back, it was a conditional
[9:08]thing.
[9:09]We were constantly making these conditional clauses, not so healthy in a marriage, very, very
[9:16]manipulative, very, you know, not healthy.
[9:21]But it's kind of the only way when you had a play.
[9:24]And so the answer became yes, but then I had to figure out how to do it.
[9:27]And that's really the story I landed.
[9:29]So yeah, and you're still together.
[9:32]Yeah.
[9:33]Okay.
[9:34]Isn't that amazing?
[9:35]I find it amazing.
[9:36]So how does he feel about it?
[9:40]So the first book is like a love letter to him and I think he recognizes that he's like
[9:44]the hero.
[9:45]Does that look a little less so?
[9:47]And he doesn't like it as much.
[9:49]I can only say it like that in quotes because that's kind of how it, you know, comes
[9:53]out sounding.
[9:54]Okay.
[9:55]Well, for the reader, I found for what that's worth.
[10:00]It's really interesting as a read, because we don't often get those inner glimpses with
[10:07]as much vulnerability and honesty about how sometimes we do things we don't want to and yet
[10:14]we're still not happy.
[10:15]And like the things we do to be nice can eat away just the way that you talked about.
[10:20]So that's interesting to have the context.
[10:22]Now I wish I'd read the other one too, I'm so sorry, but thank you for the background
[10:26]of that and now I see how that course is through.
[10:30]There's so much more than just that relationship, there's a lot about you with your children
[10:34]and you moving into new places and having new spaces.
[10:39]And then overlay, as you mentioned, you know, this whole war situation now versus what
[10:45]it was when you were writing this and there was this one scene, can I just read this
[10:49]little bit that I was like, oh my gosh, it's bifurcated too, I'll just read like one of
[10:53]these short sections and each little section, it's not even an essay, these little
[10:58]I call them yes, chapter X, okay, chapter X, layer glazer, writer Blair Glazer, okay.
[11:04]Okay, this chapter X is called bifurcated too, midway through my residency, I call
[11:08]our Israeli landline during a workshop break, daughter number one answers with a huff.
[11:12]What's wrong?
[11:13]I ask, they found the boys dead.
[11:14]How do you know?
[11:15]It's everywhere, Facebook, Twitter, Times of Israel, what's up?
[11:19]With her brother in the army and her induction date set for the subsequent summer, she
[11:22]grasps the implications, quick comebacks and fast thinking have never been one of my assets.
[11:28]How to respond.
[11:29]I'm sorry or I wish I were there even if untrue.
[11:32]Tell me what else is going on.
[11:34]What did you do today?
[11:35]Went to Jaffa, Jaffa, Jaffa, we're good.
[11:38]With a friend, walked along the port and around the flea market, ate falafel, it was super
[11:42]fun until now.
[11:44]I peer out the window, a charged sigh escapes, my eyes moisten, the push me pull me
[11:48]between home in America and home in Israel, tugs.
[11:52]We blow kisses, I slogged two sets of stairs to the room, clench a tissue, cover my face,
[11:57]my hands shake, a cavernous sob erupts.
[12:00]Are you okay, strangers ask?
[12:02]What's wrong?
[12:03]These three Israeli Jewish boys were kidnapped before I left home, Netanyahu accused Hamas,
[12:08]Hamas denied it, doesn't have eyes stare at me, they've never heard of these boys.
[12:13]My daughter told me they were found dead, Netanyahu vows severe retaliation, their faces
[12:19]are blank.
[12:20]No idea what retaliation means in this region, where everything's fair game, missiles, suicide
[12:24]bombings, knifeings, car rammings, where the biblical eye for an eye bullshit reigns, nose
[12:29]no end.
[12:30]I picture myself on my yoga mat, my legs spread apart in standing straddle pose, one foot
[12:35]there, the other here, and feel yawning irreparable pulls between them.
[12:40]Okay, so I'm a little chill.
[12:42]I'm sorry, because that's what it's like to live there.
[12:46]Yeah, and because, and because the beautiful day my daughter had had is also what it's
[12:51]like to live there.
[12:53]They both coexist these things.
[12:55]I call it the beauty and the bad one, and they just grieve the same air and it's constant.
[13:00]And I don't consider myself a political person, but the personal is the political, I can't
[13:07]write anything without that political.
[13:11]It's part of the daily life, sorry, daily life.
[13:15]Well, the fact that these things keep happening and the larger world does not always
[13:21]know or pay attention or care, the fact that this is all happening a long time ago, and
[13:28]many people Hamas is only like a thing now that people care about.
[13:32]It's wild.
[13:33]And in many places in the book, you put, I think even on the next chapter, you have these
[13:38]asterisks, like January, 2024, how naive I was, we all were, like all of these.
[13:44]Also, that's what happened is that last January of 2023, I had to reread the manuscript
[13:51]for the first time in about six years.
[13:54]I'm not sure if that six is correct.
[13:56]Four years, since I'd submitted it, signed a contract had a yes, because the first book
[14:01]places we left behind had snuck in sideways and had it had and had come out first.
[14:07]Just by chance, like I called an author's embarrassment of riches.
[14:10]I ended up, while this book, this manuscript was on submission, I was, what, I put together
[14:18]the manuscript for places we left behind and was submitting it to different contests for
[14:22]creative nonfiction prose, chapbook contests.
[14:27]Oh, and so that book came up like second.
[14:31]It was the earlier material of a much longer, originally a much longer manuscript that wasn't
[14:37]working.
[14:38]So I put it aside and started over upon landing in Israel in 2011 to do my seven-year journey.
[14:45]And I just set aside the early material and a fellow writer friend in San Diego, text
[14:51]them, emailed me in Tel Aviv to say, hey, I'm entering these contests because we were
[14:56]swapping flash stories all the time to just read each other's work, always nonfiction.
[15:02]She said, I'm entering these contests.
[15:03]I think you should, too, you should look back at your earlier work and flink together
[15:07]by theme.
[15:08]And I was like, well, I have that.
[15:09]And I went into the original earlier long over in manuscript and kind of picked out and sculpted
[15:16]this under 10,000 word because the limit for all these different contests was probably
[15:22]somewhere in the 10,000 words, which, you know, some people would say, well, that's not
[15:26]a book.
[15:27]That's an essay.
[15:28]That's a long essay, places we left behind as 14,000 words and published as a book.
[15:34]And so it all happened just serendipitously and I call it sideways.
[15:41]And so when I had to reread, landed in January of 2023 in the beginning of the war,
[15:49]it was so difficult.
[15:51]I almost couldn't do it.
[15:53]I almost pulled the manuscript.
[15:55]I emailed the publishers to say, I don't know if I can do this.
[15:58]I need to bring it up to date somehow.
[16:00]So that's why the preface is in there.
[16:01]And that's why those asterisks are in there.
[16:03]That's what that is.
[16:04]I had to address October 7th.
[16:06]Yeah.
[16:07]But aren't you glad?
[16:08]I came out.
[16:09]And tell me about the fear that you mentioned earlier.
[16:12]Well, let's say this.
[16:13]Tonight is my first event in the States.
[16:15]It's at a fabulous little bookstore that hosted me for my first book as well.
[16:19]It's in Sausalito, California.
[16:21]What am I fearful of?
[16:22]And then I end my one month of events at your bookstore in Santa Monica.
[16:28]Thank you.
[16:29]The fear of these two events in the non Jewish world is some crazy person coming off
[16:35]the street hearing somehow that I'm in from Tel Aviv hearing somehow that this is what
[16:42]I write about.
[16:43]And I fear because of where I live, maybe something happening.
[16:47]Oh, Jennifer, I was so real.
[16:50]It's so incredibly real.
[16:52]Yeah, October 7th has really changed everything.
[16:57]I didn't have that fear when I came from my first book tour in September of 2023.
[17:04]I came with joy and excitement.
[17:06]I approached everyone Jewish and non Jewish for events.
[17:10]I had loads of events all over, not all Jewish.
[17:13]I also am in a library in New Orleans in a couple of weeks.
[17:18]I have some fear advertised in the New Orleans newspaper as in from Tel Aviv.
[17:23]Well, if it makes me feel any better, we have had lots of events at the store.
[17:28]When we have any concern, we have security there.
[17:31]And nothing has got for bid happened yet.
[17:35]Even when I did the big launch event from being Jewish now, which was really out there.
[17:41]And there was a line around the corner and whatever.
[17:43]And it was fine.
[17:44]Nobody came.
[17:45]So I don't know.
[17:46]Maybe it's too inconvenient in LA to get all the way to the west side or something.
[17:50]But I'm joking.
[17:51]But the fear of all of it is real.
[17:53]But the fear of you experienced like so many authors these days.
[17:57]Have you experienced online hate, anti-Semitism, any cancellations, all of that?
[18:03]Have you had that?
[18:05]Yeah.
[18:06]So I really end your event at the books.
[18:07]My event at Zibi's is the 26th.
[18:10]And on the 27th, the reason I'm actually in LA and why I'm going and why I'm in the states
[18:16]for a month, and I'm on a panel on, I forget what it's called, narrowing the bridge
[18:22]on writing against anti-Semitism, like being resilient for AWP.
[18:27]So it's great.
[18:28]Writers and poets organization in LA, I'm on a panel with Sarah Einstein, Howard Lovey,
[18:36]Obisa, Wald, and Amy Fish.
[18:40]Sure.
[18:41]Yeah.
[18:42]Well, the answer to your question is yes.
[18:44]And that's the thing.
[18:45]You know, it's like a constant push me pull me.
[18:48]Like, I don't want this fear.
[18:49]I've been trying to be so brave.
[18:51]I've been braver than ever these past year and a half in living in Israel.
[18:57]Like, I've really reached a point of I can't live anywhere else.
[18:59]I now understand.
[19:01]I can't live anywhere else.
[19:02]I now feel more Israeli than I've ever felt.
[19:05]If I ever thought I'd landed in 2018 when landed ends, I almost look back and think,
[19:10]well, I think that was a false landing.
[19:12]I think I landed on October 8th of 2023.
[19:16]I mean, that's that's the craziness of it.
[19:19]I belong in Israel.
[19:20]I see that now.
[19:21]I am not a religious Jew.
[19:22]I'm Jewish.
[19:23]I'm not religious.
[19:24]I am not observant.
[19:25]I do not keep the Sabbath.
[19:26]I'm in a mixed marriage.
[19:28]And I'm happier now than I've ever been.
[19:30]That's the crazy part.
[19:32]Because I'm where I belong.
[19:33]I'm with a lot of people who we share the same story and perspective.
[19:38]We are in it together.
[19:40]The bond is so strong.
[19:41]We can say thing.
[19:42]We don't have been canceled.
[19:44]We don't have this concept.
[19:45]We are we don't have speaking politically correctly.
[19:48]We don't have these things hanging over us.
[19:50]We say it directly and we understand each other.
[19:54]And there's something really comforting about that.
[19:56]I can't say it to you here now publicly.
[20:00]at all. But I can tell you that it's comforting and want to be able to be so open and honest
[20:08]and to speak one's true feelings and to not have to hide and to cower. I don't cower in my
[20:14]daily life and I am surrounded by people who understand. So that's kind of crazy. That was beautiful.
[20:21]Really beautiful. And so what do you do when you feel the fear? Like how do you handle it?
[20:28]They're now here. You carry it with you. So I used to tremble when I would hear an air
[20:35]rate siren and there's like a strange numbness that has happened. I'm going to say two things.
[20:42]They both live together, which is I no longer tremble. I feel really calm on the one hand.
[20:47]On the other hand, I was somewhere in San Francisco where I am this week with family.
[20:53]When I heard, I don't know, it was the beginning of an ambulance one and it's a visceral thing.
[21:00]No one else was triggered. Just me. I didn't even say anything because I could see no one was triggered.
[21:06]So there's something in the sound of the siren that is very triggering viscerally in the body
[21:12]where you have a moment of fight or flight. But I used to actually tremble in the time of
[21:22]what landed is covering like the summer of 2014, which was a 50 day war with Hamas in Israel.
[21:27]I trembled every time I went down into Art Bomb Shelter in our home in Renana. I go longer
[21:33]tremble. So on the night of, I mean, this is crazy to just sit and talk casually, right? But on the
[21:40]night of the ballistic missiles coming from Iran back in the fall back in September of 2024,
[21:47]my first daughter was visiting, she lives in New York. She was visiting us. It was my husband,
[21:53]myself and my daughter. We were in the middle of having dinner. We took our plates into the stairwell
[21:58]where we just, you know, talked and listened and heard the crazy stuff going on in the sky and
[22:05]heard the neighbors in the stairwell. My husband went back in to get a refill on his wine because
[22:09]he's French. He came back into the stairwell with his wine. Like, it was, it's just this crazy
[22:17]calm shit part in my language reality. And the other crazy thing, my youngest daughter, daughter
[22:25]number two, just spent six months in Taiwan immersing in Mandarin. She's, she now has to come back
[22:30]to Israel and we'll start to adult, start to look for a job. She's kind of done having these
[22:34]amazing experiences. And she was battling her first typhoon. She was hunkering down in Kaoshung
[22:42]Taiwan because there was a typhoon warning, which she's calling us to say like, I don't know what
[22:46]to do or like, we don't know what you should do. You should probably Google it. And good luck to you.
[22:52]And she's like, good luck to us. I mean, there's something crazy, right? And then, and then the
[22:56]bigger picture of all that is the world feels a little like it's falling apart on us. And I cry
[23:03]really easily. And I feel sad for my children. It's a really sucky world. We're giving them.
[23:09]I didn't have these experiences. I had other things growing up at their ages. They're in their mid 20s,
[23:14]but like, this is, this is bad. What we're living. You know, it's in Israel with a friend this summer,
[23:22]the conversation was civilization goes through cycles and we're reaching the end of a cycle.
[23:30]That is what it feels like to us in Israel. We are reaching the end of a cycle. And the question
[23:34]for us in Israel is, will we survive once we hit rock bottom? Will we make it to reset? That's our
[23:43]conversation. So we're approaching 60. We're 59 and a half. And our group of friends kind of
[23:50]ranges from mid 50s to almost 70. And this has been the summer for every one of us to either
[23:56]write our wills or update our wills. Because you know, the summer wills and more. Because that's
[24:03]what you have to do. And again, it's like, I don't say it unemotionally. I say it to you with a lot
[24:08]of emotion. It's just, this is our lives because there's a lot of beauty in it. And you have to
[24:15]recognize it. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Kind of sobering for eight, 30 in the mornings, that'd be
[24:20]sorry. No, don't please don't apologize. Like, this is what life is about. It's connecting over
[24:27]the, what we're all, what we all are dealing with. And it's really helpful to hear it from your
[24:34]perspective. I mean, I think a lot of people are wondering like, oh my gosh, like, what's it like
[24:39]now in Israel and are people okay? And you know, it seems so dangerous. And people here don't
[24:44]want to visit like, but how can you live there? And that it is. So this is how you can live there.
[24:49]This is the answer. Well, the answer to how you can live there is you move forward with life.
[24:54]I mean, this is hard for me to say because I definitely had people comment on this. But if I
[24:59]say to you, Tel Aviv, where we live in the center, we live right near the Carmel market, like a
[25:03]shock, a soak is popping. You need dinner reservations because the restaurants are full. You need
[25:09]reservations at the wine bars because the wine bars are popping. You need, the beach is open almost
[25:16]almost all year. The beach is active and like surfers and kite surfers. And I don't even know
[25:20]the names of all the sports on the water and runners and walkers and bikers and electric bikers and
[25:25]electric scooters and and people yogaing on the on the seashore and all these and sepers and like
[25:33]all of these it's so it's so dynamic and alive. It's it's crazy. You would have no idea. There
[25:40]is a war. Save for the posters of the hostages everywhere you turn. The graffiti, if you understand
[25:46]it, the street art, the graffiti on the street, which I miss a lot of it because I don't understand
[25:50]it. And my daughters stop and show me like break it down for me. I mean, I can read, but I read
[25:56]like a kindergartner. And the reminders of war are everywhere. The other thing that we see that
[26:02]we never used to see to this extent, soldiers get off like it's nothing I think like the American
[26:07]Army. Soldiers get off maybe every Friday for the Sabbath to go home to have Friday night
[26:13]dinner with their parents maybe depending on the unit they're in. So if you've been called up and
[26:17]you're in the reserves, you might get home more often. And the opposite could be true depending on
[26:22]what unit you're in. Never have I seen so many off-duty soldiers and how do I know who they are
[26:28]because they're carrying their huge gun across their body. If you're in a unit where you're
[26:36]assigned a gun, which not everybody is, obviously, that gun can only be left at home if it can
[26:43]be behind two locked doors. One, the door of your house or your apartment and two, a locked closet.
[26:50]And because of the security situation since October 7th, what I think I'm seeing is
[26:56]no one's leaving their gun at home. No matter how many locked doors they can leave it behind.
[27:00]They're feeling a sense of I need to be the person on the street when I'm out at dinner or the
[27:05]wine bar or the beach. I've seen a guy, group of friends on a Saturday at the beach. They're all
[27:11]removing their clothes, getting into the, putting it on the sand and walking into the water. And
[27:15]this guy has his gun over his bare shoulder. He's in his swim trucks and he goes up to his legs.
[27:21]And they're all hovering around him, only where they can be up to the water, up to their legs,
[27:26]because he's carrying the gun. He can't go one step further. It's mind blowing to watch how real
[27:33]life sinks with war. So that's, that's what it is. Are you writing about this? I've written an essay,
[27:40]I kind of don't want to give it. I haven't found a home for it. I've written an essay that I
[27:44]wish I could find a home for, but all of those venues that I used to write for, you know, they're
[27:49]no longer open to me. Put it on, um, on our sub stack on being Jewish now. We have new essays
[27:55]like every day, every week. If you want, I know it's not the same as like, you know, a major
[27:58]newspaper. I don't think I knew that you had a sub stack. Yeah. On being Jewish now, that's
[28:03]upset. Okay. If you're interested, we would love to publish it. Okay. Yeah. As a last resort, if
[28:09]you were interested, let us know. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. It's like, then I just feel
[28:13]like I'm writing to the choir. Yeah. Right. I want to, I used my, my whole mission all these
[28:19]years. Like I'm so, I have to say it, like widely published on not in non Jewish places. And that
[28:26]was always an, you know, always been my goal. But thank you. I will look into what you're, yes,
[28:33]thank you. Well, Jennifer, this is a lot. You are holding a lot. You are being really brave. I
[28:42]know that's a stupid word to say when it's so many people, but by sharing what you're going through
[28:47]with the rest of us, it is empowering. It is enriching our lives to hear what's going on with you
[28:54]there. And, you know, the book is fabulous. And also shows us the side of Israel that we might not
[29:00]know about. So thank you for taking us with you and letting us in. Really appreciate it.
[29:06]And I hope you're okay. And we're looking forward to hosting you. Thank you.
[29:10]Okay. All right. Thanks. Bye. Hang in there. Bye. Thank you for listening to totally booked
[29:17]with Zibi, formerly momstone have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend,
[29:22]leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens, and spread the word. Thanks so much.
[29:29]Oh, and bye the books.