Author Event! Bianna Golodryga & Yonit Levi
[0:00]I think it's our third event.
[0:01]Elizabeth, we had a podcast.
[0:03]I was at a book event in Connecticut for her,
[0:05]and I was so excited to come out to Sunny LA
[0:07]to spend time here.
[0:09]And someone's like, can you see the forecast?
[0:12]But anyway, it was nice to get on a plane.
[0:14]My kids are with my mom, and I get to spend an hour with you
[0:17]guys.
[0:18]So first of all, thank you for coming out in the rain.
[0:20]I would not have blamed you for staying home, so thank you.
[0:24]I guess I'll begin.
[0:27]I don't want to talk too much.
[0:28]I'd love to hear from you and your thoughts
[0:30]and any questions.
[0:31]I guess I'll tell you a little bit about my background,
[0:33]and then how this book came about.
[0:35]Because this is my first book.
[0:37]It's a novel for middle grade readers.
[0:40]If you would have asked me three years ago
[0:42]what I'd be doing this, and I probably
[0:44]would have said you're crazy.
[0:46]But here we are.
[0:47]The world has definitely changed.
[0:49]I was born in the former Soviet Union,
[0:50]and I moved to the United States with my parents,
[0:53]political refugees in 1980.
[0:55]So my dad says, I was their most expensive luggage
[0:57]that they left with as 8, 18 months old.
[1:00]We were allowed to leave with $180 total.
[1:03]My parents did not want to go where all of the other Soviet
[1:08]refugees were going, which is mostly New York and Los Angeles.
[1:11]And they were quite the conferrarians.
[1:13]And my dad was an engineer by training.
[1:15]My mom wanted to go somewhere warm.
[1:16]So highest, the Hebrew resettlement agency that moved us here
[1:20]said there's a family and a community in Galveston, Texas
[1:23]that would love to sponsor you.
[1:24]So we moved to Galveston, like fish out of water.
[1:27]My parents had no idea what Galveston was.
[1:29]Houston, they knew because of NASA.
[1:31]And it's a big internationally recognized city.
[1:34]Six months later, my dad got a job in Houston.
[1:36]They're still there.
[1:37]And that's where they live.
[1:38]I grew up there, went to school in Houston,
[1:41]went to University of Texas.
[1:43]Never really experienced antisemitism growing up.
[1:46]I was definitely an other.
[1:47]I was the only Jewish kid in my school.
[1:50]As we lived in a suburb outside of Houston
[1:52]for the first few years, we were the only Russians
[1:55]in the area.
[1:57]Like all other kids, all you want to do
[1:58]is fit in and blend in and having a strange name.
[2:02]And parents, it's funny accents and strange food.
[2:06]That was never a perfect reality for me,
[2:11]but it was my own reality.
[2:13]And people embraced it.
[2:14]And once in a blue moon, I would hear something about,
[2:17]oh, Jews killed Jesus.
[2:18]And I'll say, as a child growing up, I welcome what my parents
[2:25]and my friends and I and their parents ended up doing.
[2:28]And none of it was planned.
[2:29]It was just because that was life as it presented itself.
[2:32]And we were the only Jews and the only friends I had
[2:37]is I would end up going to church with them.
[2:39]And my friends would come to synagogue with me,
[2:42]to Shabbat services.
[2:44]And I can't begin to tell you how much I learned
[2:50]from my friends about their religion, their community.
[2:54]For many of them, I was the first Jew they'd ever met.
[2:58]And so now I look back to those days
[3:01]and think how wholesome that felt.
[3:03]And if only we could do that more and experience each other's
[3:06]cultures a bit more, we'd be in a little bit of a better place.
[3:09]But anyway, fast forward to 2001, I moved to New York.
[3:13]I thought I would be working in finance.
[3:15]I got a job in television.
[3:16]And with no experience, I didn't think
[3:19]I wanted to be in television.
[3:20]I was behind the scenes as a producer at CNBC
[3:23]and then inevitably six or seven years later
[3:27]started having some interest in doing on-air work.
[3:31]And then I was at ABC, then Yahoo, CBS, and CNN.
[3:38]And antisemitism had always been something
[3:41]that I had learned about, obviously,
[3:43]as a refugee to this country.
[3:45]So grateful to be a Jewish American here
[3:47]and had heard about my parents' experience
[3:50]in the Soviet Union, where antisemitism was institutionalized there.
[3:56]That was my nationality.
[3:57]As you would know, my birth certificate
[4:00]identifies me as Jewish, my parents, everything
[4:04]from their library card to their driver's license.
[4:06]So they had a car.
[4:07]But their driver's license listed them as Jews
[4:10]and identified them as such.
[4:11]There were quotas getting into any good universities.
[4:15]There were limitations in terms of how high up you could go
[4:18]professionally.
[4:20]So all of that was the culmination of all of that led
[4:23]my parents, thankfully, to be allowed to leave the country
[4:27]as refugees.
[4:28]And so I heard about all these stories.
[4:30]And we all knew about antisemitism
[4:33]being with us from millennia and sort of morphing
[4:36]from the right, the left.
[4:37]But it was all, in my mind, at least in the past.
[4:41]Yes, once in a while, there would be some antisemitism.
[4:44]And I think the tree of life shooting
[4:45]was the first real wake-up call I had in covering that.
[4:49]It was very personal for me because it was a right-wing,
[4:53]anti-immigrant shooter who was going after highest,
[4:58]which was the organization.
[5:00]that helped move us here to the United States.
[5:02]So I remember covering that.
[5:04]And even now looking back and as personal as that was,
[5:07]I still felt like now I can say,
[5:10]all of these cases were almost treated as a one-off.
[5:13]It is individual sort of, okay,
[5:15]it's a game of whack-a-mole,
[5:16]once in a blue moon, some antisemitism will pop up.
[5:18]We'll address it on its own
[5:21]and not view it from a broader scale.
[5:24]And I really had then another wake up call in 2020
[5:30]which planted the seed for this book.
[5:32]When my son, who was 13 at the time,
[5:36]was very a huge sports fan.
[5:40]And we were on our way to a basketball game,
[5:45]a Brooklyn Nets basketball game.
[5:46]And this is after the Kyrie Irving antisemitic post
[5:50]that garnered international headlines
[5:53]and that I think followed Kanye West, antisemitic post.
[5:57]And what the two had in common
[5:58]aside from these being two prominent figures
[6:00]was that despite the offense,
[6:03]there was no real consequence for their action.
[6:08]They, everyone but them apologized for these posts.
[6:13]They then had a bunch of support as well
[6:16]for either people defending them
[6:18]or saying it wasn't so bad.
[6:20]And with Kyrie Irving,
[6:22]he eventually was suspended for a few games
[6:24]that I don't think he ever really fully apologized.
[6:27]And I didn't realize that my son was aware of this
[6:29]at the age of 10 and we were on our way to a basketball game.
[6:33]And he said, why are we even going?
[6:34]Does he doesn't even want me there?
[6:36]Why do they hate us?
[6:37]It was something along those lines of questions.
[6:40]And I had no idea how to answer him.
[6:42]And so I thought, okay, well,
[6:44]I'm gonna email the school tomorrow.
[6:46]Surely they have resources for antisemitism
[6:49]because this is after George Floyd's murder.
[6:52]And thankfully there had been so many resources
[6:56]addressing racism and hate and the parents.
[6:59]We were very much engaged with the school.
[7:01]We were constantly being notified about
[7:03]this new program, these new books,
[7:05]these conversations being held in class.
[7:07]And so I thought that's great.
[7:09]We're really moving the right direction as a country.
[7:11]We're really addressing issues
[7:13]that hadn't been discussed at least appropriately
[7:16]for so many years.
[7:18]And I just naively thought antisemitism fell
[7:20]in that pool as well.
[7:23]And the response from the school was,
[7:25]we actually don't have anything on antisemitism.
[7:28]And for Jake's age group, my son,
[7:32]we basically wait for them to ask the questions.
[7:36]And once they do, maybe we'll discuss it.
[7:38]And I'm just thinking,
[7:39]how realistic is it for a 10-year-old
[7:41]to raise their hand in class
[7:43]and ask about antisemitism?
[7:46]So that really bothered me.
[7:48]And the seed was planted about needing
[7:50]to fill some sort of void there.
[7:52]And but again, the game of whack-a-mole continued,
[7:54]and think it was that big of a deal.
[7:56]And then October 7th happened
[7:57]and the world just turned upside down.
[7:59]And Yoneet is a very good friend of mine.
[8:02]We have known each other for many, many years.
[8:04]She's the most prominent news anchor
[8:06]and journalist, a news anchor and journalist in Israel
[8:09]for channel 12.
[8:10]And so, and she had spent her formative years
[8:13]in the United States.
[8:15]She went to elementary school here.
[8:16]So she knows the U.S. very well
[8:18]and the school system too.
[8:19]And after October 7th, I reached out to her
[8:22]because, you know, A, I needed to know what was happening
[8:24]in Israel and how she was covering the events
[8:26]and the attack.
[8:28]And then she actually went back
[8:29]and found our first correspondence about the book.
[8:32]And it was October 20th.
[8:34]When I said to her, I think we're gonna have
[8:36]a huge spike in antisemitism.
[8:39]And I've been wanting to do something about this.
[8:41]I didn't know how to go about it,
[8:42]but I think you and I should write a book together
[8:45]and fill the void and write the book we can't find
[8:48]for this age group.
[8:50]So we started writing and then, you know,
[8:53]again, she's 5,000 miles away in Israel.
[8:56]She's seven hours ahead.
[8:58]We neither of us have written a book before.
[9:01]So okay, this is quite an ambitious task.
[9:03]How are we gonna do it?
[9:04]And the plot for the book, you know, came together quite quickly.
[9:09]Obviously, the book is about three characters,
[9:13]three protagonists, a 13 year old brother,
[9:15]he's 11 year old sister and a 13 year old ally
[9:18]and friend who's not Jewish, Annie and Theo,
[9:21]the 13 year old and the 11 year old are Jewish.
[9:24]They live in Chicago.
[9:26]They have Israeli grandparents
[9:27]who are great characters in this book.
[9:29]And we sort of thought the book was initially gonna be
[9:32]more about the grandparents and the kids, right?
[9:34]No, no, this is the kids' book.
[9:35]Let's make them the main characters.
[9:39]And so the idea of a prominent sports star
[9:44]saying something anti-Semitic, you now know the backstory there.
[9:49]We, my son plays soccer or soccer as a universal sport.
[9:53]We figured this book, you know, can be viewed and read
[9:56]and understood around the world.
[9:59]So we just,
[10:00]decided to have a star soccer player make an anti-Semitic slur that's caught on tape.
[10:05]The 13 year old protagonist Theo's huge soccer fan and this is his favorite player.
[10:11]And so you see everything spiral after the fact.
[10:15]And soon enough, swastikas painted on his school gym locker.
[10:20]He's a soccer player and a co-captain of the school soccer team.
[10:24]And this book was never intended to be for anti-Semites.
[10:27]So like the nicks went, this is the world, no one's minds are going to be changed there.
[10:31]But it was more, and no one condemned all the adults in this book, there's no real villain.
[10:37]The soccer player doesn't have a huge role here.
[10:39]He just starts off the book.
[10:41]But the core of it is when the adults don't step up the way they should in address and
[10:47]acknowledge and react to anti-Semitic posts and the swastika and comments made here or there.
[10:56]That allows anti-Semitism to feed and grow and fester.
[11:00]And then the burden falls on the kids.
[11:02]And that's how we decided to lay this book out, a lot of it is fictional, but a lot of
[11:06]it is based on real life examples of events that happen in my family and friends and
[11:10]colleagues that have over the years experienced anti-Semitism too with their kids.
[11:16]So we had laid out the plot pretty early.
[11:21]And by the end of 2023, December, we had the pitch for the book.
[11:28]We had the first few chapters written.
[11:30]I'm lucky to be represented by a major talent agency.
[11:35]They have in-house book agents, so we sent it out to all the major publishing houses.
[11:41]And I have to say, we were surprised that after a few months of not hearing anything,
[11:49]very little feedback, that continued.
[11:51]So we initially were told, okay, well, this is a very difficult age group to write for,
[11:56]which is true.
[11:57]We've come to find out, which is a separate problem because it's a very inquisitive,
[12:01]very smart, curious, impressionable age group, but still talks to their parents.
[12:07]And there are no real materials that fit that level of intellect there.
[12:11]So I think that's a loss for this age group that really needs to be addressed too.
[12:15]But then we were told, now may not be the time to write about antisemitism.
[12:21]I don't think people want to read books about this now, and then you've got the war going
[12:26]on to maybe in a couple of years, and we're thinking, now is the time.
[12:32]And then other publishers just never got back to us.
[12:35]So we were so invested in this project, we just said, we're going to self-publish if need
[12:40]be.
[12:41]And then last, for this year, in February of this year, I ended up, and at this point,
[12:47]I lost all humility, and I could care less than anybody that would listen, I would tell them
[12:51]about this book and how I can't find a publisher.
[12:54]And I was at a dinner party seated one night next to Michael Lindton, who used to run
[13:00]Sony Pictures, and now is a chairman of Snap.
[13:04]And I was telling about this book, and I thought, you know, okay, he's going to say,
[13:07]oh, that's so sad, sorry to hear that.
[13:09]And he said, you know, I'll publish it.
[13:11]And he has a small publishing company that he runs with his sister.
[13:14]It's a regional children's book company.
[13:17]They've never written anything like this, published anything like this.
[13:20]And he said, send me the book, if I like it, we'll publish it.
[13:23]And that was in February of March.
[13:26]Long story short, he liked it.
[13:28]By May, we already had a deal.
[13:30]We were done with the book in July, and the best thing about having a small publisher
[13:33]is that instead of waiting a year, year and a half, and leaving it up to a major publisher
[13:37]to decide when to put this book out, they set it up to you.
[13:41]And we said we need to do it as soon as possible.
[13:43]So November 11th, we published the book, I have to say it sold out on Amazon.
[13:50]I knew that there was a need for it, and I knew just from hearing anecdotally from
[13:55]others about what's happening in their schools across the country and around the world
[13:59]that they don't have books like this, and it's not a panacea, but at least it's one
[14:03]resource.
[14:04]And it's a book that kids can pick up because it's a good story, but also because it
[14:08]addresses maybe some experiences they're going through and haven't discussed.
[14:12]And it's also for their non-Jewish friends and allies who don't know what antisemitism looks
[14:16]like or feels like.
[14:18]So I have been blown away by some of the feedback we've already heard from different
[14:25]religious institutions, synagogues across the country, schools, public, private parents.
[14:31]And sort of, you know, the last thing I'll say before, you know, if you have any questions
[14:35]questions, is you'll need an eye, you know, we've never done this before, we're used
[14:39]to speaking publicly, so that wasn't an issue, but we didn't know how to, who do we bring
[14:43]to our events?
[14:44]Is it kids?
[14:45]Is it parents?
[14:46]Is it faculty, teacher?
[14:47]So we just decided to make it a mix of everyone.
[14:50]And we had an event at the striker center on Tuesday that I was telling you guys about,
[14:53]and we had Gary Castrop as a speaker and then Elon Gold was, you know, sort of the comedy,
[14:58]the comedic relief.
[15:00]And then at the end, we said, let's take some questions, and there were some kids in the audience.
[15:05]And there may be a few hundred people there.
[15:09]And an eighth grader, mind you, in New York City, in 2025, an eighth grader raised his hand and said,
[15:16]there is a swastika carved on my desk with Heil Hitler written next to it.
[15:21]And it makes me really sad.
[15:24]And so you could hear a pin drop in the room and, you know,
[15:27]parents heads returning, no one knew what to say.
[15:30]And, you know, I just said, you know, thank you so much for speaking.
[15:33]And that's so brave of you.
[15:34]And I hope that, you know, you are talking to, you know, members of your faculty at your school.
[15:39]And the head of this was not acceptable.
[15:41]And his mom reached out to me the next day and said, you know, we've been dealing with this problem.
[15:46]You know, privately the school is aware we're working on it.
[15:49]But this was the first time he's felt courageous enough and comfortable enough to talk about this in a public setting.
[15:56]And I thought, you know, this is what we need to be doing.
[15:59]We need to be speaking.
[16:00]We did in New York.
[16:01]We went to a school and kids hands.
[16:03]I mean, at the end, the teachers work, that's enough.
[16:05]You know, we're done.
[16:06]I'm like, no, no, I think other kids want to say something.
[16:08]And the questions they had, you know, how do you see antisemitism?
[16:14]What do you do if you see it?
[16:16]What do you tell someone when they're experiencing it?
[16:18]I mean, it's clear there's a need for these types of conversations.
[16:21]You know, need an eye or not.
[16:22]The expert or not child psychologists, you know, we're not educated on how to, you know, combat antisemitism per se.
[16:30]But we're hoping this can be a useful tool.
[16:32]And we've worked with working with the ADL about having some sort of supplemental perhaps that can go along with guides for teachers to talk to their kids about it.
[16:42]But it's going to be an uphill battle, but it's clear that there's a need for it.
[16:47]So it's a good story.
[16:48]I think it's for kids, for parents, for teachers, for Jews and non-Jews.
[16:53]But it's just to elevate the conversation and the alarm in the country beyond just, you know, this is a one-off incident.
[17:03]And let's just move on and not talk about it anymore.
[17:06]Because then the burden falls on the kids.
[17:08]And that was what we wanted to sort of, you know, have the crux as a story here.
[17:13]The kids are solving the problems here, but also kids are the ones that have a really good gut instinct.
[17:18]And they know right away when something's right and wrong.
[17:20]And when they don't see the adults around them reacting the same accordingly, then I think you think start to spiral.
[17:26]And actions and behavior that we see in this book and in real life become somewhat acceptable and normalized.
[17:33]And then the only thing I'll add is that we, you know, we decided to set the book in 2022.
[17:38]Because we didn't want to have to.
[17:41]We know I think one of the reasons why teachers in schools have avoided this subject even before October 7th is because they always think now we're going to be drawn into the Middle East.
[17:51]And to the conflict there.
[17:53]And then, you know, there's so much, you know, emotions surrounding this and so many different views.
[17:58]And we don't want to get mired in that.
[18:01]I will say as great as this country is and I couldn't imagine living in any other country, especially coming as an immigrant.
[18:08]It's, it's a choice my parents made and so I'm forever grateful to be here.
[18:13]But I don't remember a day growing up as a kid in Texas or even here now and seeing my kids where there isn't an armed guard outside of a Jewish house of worship or institution.
[18:23]And, you know, we've also sort of normalized that in this country.
[18:27]And to now to the point where I don't feel comfortable going into a temple or a, you know, a JCC or any, you know, major place of worship where there isn't security.
[18:38]So that's also one of those, one of those acts that I think we tend to again, nobody says antisemitism is good.
[18:46]But the fact that we've sort of accepted this as a norm is a problem too.
[18:51]So there, there's sort of, I hope I've talked enough or you get a sense of what the book is about and who it's for.
[18:59]But I'm grateful that you all came so I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.
[19:04]Anyone wants to be the first or any or comments?
[19:07]Yeah.
[19:08]Very grateful and appreciative of this in our kids.
[19:10]You know, have not fortunately haven't experienced any of this type of thing first and you grew up in.
[19:17]I was 18 months old and then grew up in outside of Houston.
[19:22]Okay.
[19:23]So you didn't actually experience any antisemitism in itself?
[19:26]No.
[19:27]Yeah.
[19:28]Yeah.
[19:29]Yeah.
[19:30]I just, you know, this is a kind of a chink in the armor.
[19:37]So there's the floodgates that are open.
[19:40]There's, there's, there's, there's those sort of like it's coming from all directions right now.
[19:46]Yeah.
[19:47]What do you see sort of down line?
[19:50]I need to meeting with people.
[19:51]You're speaking in front of people.
[19:53]You're speaking in front of young people.
[19:55]They're not all Jewish kids.
[19:57]No.
[19:58]So, um, the ones that are in.
[20:00]college and indoctrinate very much with certain points of view, addressing this
[20:07]market I think is essential because they're not yet in college but they're being
[20:12]influenced by a lot of things. So what are you sort of seek coming down the
[20:18]hike and being removed in the street as well? Yeah I mean that's one of the
[20:22]reasons we wanted to write a book for this age group because not only did we
[20:25]see that there were no books like this but as you said this is such an
[20:29]impressionable group and they're still well-informed even if they're not on
[20:33]social media yet they see what's happening you can't protect them and shield
[20:36]them from everything I mean my study my kid is like a case study in this he
[20:39]doesn't have social media but he reads everything and this is also sort of one
[20:45]generation before removed from what we've seen on college campuses and I think a
[20:50]big disservice has been done over the years and trying you know it's not
[20:53]fashionable anymore but maybe that's changing quickly too to just come out and
[20:57]say you're an anti-Semite. I was shocked that all of the sudden so quickly
[21:02]Zionism became such a polarizing word. When I grew up you know Israel sort of
[21:06]superseded politics it didn't matter which party was an office right left
[21:10]good Prime Minister bad Prime Minister corruption on corruption I mean it was
[21:13]the country as a whole that stood as the ancestral homeland of Jewish people and
[21:17]from the diaspora anyone was welcome you could come I mean and that's how I
[21:21]viewed and learned to respect and loved Israel and I spent a few weeks there as a
[21:26]kid over you know very formative years and during a summer period and I think
[21:32]there's a generational change now that we're saying even among Jewish kids
[21:39]here in this country where they don't feel necessarily as Jews in America that
[21:44]there's any connection to Israel and that you can separate the two and for me
[21:50]and I think still the majority of Jews anybody who calls themselves
[21:55]anti-Zionist that just comes across as anti-Semitic and it's hard to
[21:59]square the two and it's probably cleaner to say you're anti-Zionist but no I
[22:04]love Jews and I don't even know what that means so that that was one of the
[22:08]reasons again this doesn't take place in you know post in October 7th world and
[22:13]doesn't touch on the conflict but it was important to have an Israeli co-author
[22:18]just to just to reiterate that point that you know
[22:27]yes I don't want to get stuck in the whole you know kind of political
[22:30]geographical situation so therefore we have to set it before
[22:35]because anti-Semitism as we know existed long before the state of Israel and
[22:39]for this age group I feel like you it's you need more than a 250-page book to go
[22:46]into the history of the conflict there as a journalist you know I will say and
[22:53]you know I'm not an naive person and even in covering you know previous wars
[22:58]and fighting in the Middle East nothing has been this long nothing has been
[23:01]this brutal and ugly and wars are just that and the longer they go on the
[23:05]uglier they are and inevitably you know I am by no means a spokesperson for
[23:11]the Israeli government and I am not one to say this was a wrong action that
[23:15]was a right action but it did get to the point where I just felt this was
[23:19]walled walled coverage it even exceeded you know coverage of the war in Ukraine
[23:23]and this was the one conflict that I think generated so much emotion even
[23:29]among my colleagues and I'm grateful at CNN we have tons of real estate I have
[23:34]my own show I was able to spend a lot of time covering the hostages and going
[23:39]to Israel and talking about that trauma and reminding people of how this war
[23:42]began and you know the the assault against women in particular and the
[23:49]violence there but again looking back now there's this sort of revisionist
[23:55]history that all of this came about only after the war became bloodier and
[24:00]bloodier and again October 20th I don't even know if the idea had gone in yet
[24:04]when I already texted you and said we're gonna have a problem and let's write a
[24:08]book I was on air on CNN on a panel right around this time too talking about
[24:14]New Yorkers being afraid of getting into Ubers because of their last names
[24:18]taking businesses off their doors you know college students the protests had
[24:22]already started you know that this didn't happen in a vacuum justification had
[24:27]already begun so none of this is to say that some actions by the current
[24:35]government in Israel have helped but I also felt like all of a sudden this
[24:39]became a purity test okay you're a good Jew if you can condemn X Y and Z and
[24:45]I just felt that that wasn't the case for any other conflict as much as you
[24:51]know we talk about other wars or maybe we don't talk enough about you look at
[24:56]our adversaries and nobody today is saying well should
[25:00]North Korea be a country. I'm not sure. Should China be a country? Is it a legitimate? I'm not,
[25:05]you know, should Russia be a legitimate country? And so there was only one country that was
[25:09]applied to. And that would became an issue. And I think for kids, even if it's school, they don't
[25:14]necessarily think what they're saying is anti-Semitic, but maybe I'm just going to go criticize
[25:18]Israel. They don't necessarily understand that for the majority of Jews and maybe their peers,
[25:24]they feel like they're criticizing them as Jews too. So we thought, okay, you know,
[25:29]let's break the ice. Someone comfortable conversations are meant to be had. And this was at least
[25:35]one way to get that started in schools. Yes. First of all, your coverage I have was incredible. Thank
[25:44]you. And I just feel you're grateful. It stood out the most like all of your colleagues.
[25:50]Thank you. And then I'll move that. So thank you for that. I created a Jewish team leadership
[25:57]program. So it's for on postponing that students. And something that really fascinates me
[26:06]is kind of an intersection about media illiteracy among, you know, students at a time when like
[26:13]all of their news consumption is pretty much done in social media. And then I appreciate that
[26:18]your book. Um, you know, I've had some very dramatic having a swastika and having certain things
[26:23]that people say that's very explicit anti-Semitism. But I think the implicit anti-Semitism is much
[26:30]harder to identify. And that's why you were just, I think, referring to and just the dialogue
[26:34]Yeah. Israel. Um, and so I think that's really challenging for the students because to pay back on
[26:43]your point, anti-Semitism seems like the one type of hate that's attributed towards a minority group
[26:50]we're not only do they not necessarily believe Jews are qualified to point out what's anti-Semitic
[26:55]but often they'll say enough about this like sort of the point like it's too much. Yeah. And so
[27:01]hearing my students say that they feel intimidated to even bring out to a friend. Yeah. That's
[27:07]something they're saying is anti-Semitic because they don't want their friends to say, oh, you're
[27:10]so touching. Oh, here we go again. Right. Yes. Always completely. You know, we're just talking about
[27:15]Israel. Like it's it's a bit too much. And that that's an interesting dynamic when it's when it's
[27:21]a front. Yeah. It's not a celebrity. Yeah. And it's not someone else in there. And so I am wondering
[27:26]into the extent that you're hearing from students like how do we empower them. Yeah. I mean, even
[27:33]that boy the eighth grader who, you know, for the first time in a public crowd said I have,
[27:39]swastika carved on my desk. I mean, these are stories you would have expected to hear, you know,
[27:44]decades ago, centuries ago and not even in America. And I felt even with the Kanye West and the
[27:53]Kyrie Irving. And these are just, you know, prominent figures. I mean, this is I think a case study
[27:59]that could be had about, you know, other other instances across the country that people were going
[28:05]through where even with the Kyrie, it did feel like at some point like, okay, let's just stop being
[28:10]the burden. Okay, move on. It's like they're they're going to lose the serious, you know, look at
[28:15]their standing now. He's their best player. You really want to do this. It's only going to increase
[28:19]antisemitism. That's another thing we hear. Well, that's only going to make antisemitism worse
[28:24]than, you know, other athletes would come to their defense. He didn't really mean that what's,
[28:28]I don't see the harm. It's a good guy. And then the burdens put on the victim and it's like,
[28:34]okay, well, I don't mean to cause and, you know, ruckus or I don't mean to, you know, to be
[28:39]somebody who's standing in the way of X, Y, and Z. And we, there are scenes like that in the
[28:44]book too. And again, they reflect on experiences members of my family had. There's a principal
[28:52]in the book who, you know, this boy Theo messers the courage to actually go and talk to him because
[28:59]at first he doesn't want to acknowledge if that was his locker and doesn't want to make a big
[29:03]bus over it because their college, their soccer team is about to go to the championship. And
[29:09]if he reports this, if the principal reports the swastika, then they may be disqualified.
[29:13]They're all these paperwork has to be filed. And so the principal is telling him, well, you know,
[29:20]you're a good player. You're a great player. You have such a great reputation. You do realize,
[29:24]first of all, if we do this, I mean, I will do it. But there's a lot of paperwork. You may not,
[29:30]the whole team may be punished. It's just really what you want. And I feel like examples,
[29:36]like that happened in real life. We had my stepson at a school in Washington, D.C. in 2017
[29:44]had multiple instances of swastikas found in markings throughout the school. And after the
[29:50]first and then second time, we just felt like the notes of the school was sending home about the,
[29:55]it was like a tertiary issue. Like, you know, there was a rat found in the school. This
[30:00]whatever the bus was laid and then by the way, you know, swastikas. And so after the second one
[30:06]and we could see it really bothered my son, my husband reached out to the school and said,
[30:11]you know, listen, this is a serious matter. This is the second time you've had swastikas
[30:16]spray painted on the school walls. Like what are you doing about it? Because it's clearly not
[30:19]aggressive enough. And the head of the school wrote back and said, well, Peter, I'm really shocked
[30:24]by your tone. First of all, the swastika, once swastika was not spray painted, it was in pencil
[30:30]and the other was on a dry erase board. So basically like we cleaned it up, erased the pencil,
[30:36]swastika, and erased the other, the dry erase board swastika, and nothing to see here. And it's
[30:42]because of that that I just feel people have felt either uncomfortable to speak out because they
[30:47]don't want to be the problem. And it's been allowed to grow and metastasize and be somewhat acceptable
[30:54]to where, you know, very educated leaders of top universities in this country are saying,
[31:00]well, context matters, the first amendment. And then you're really thinking to yourself,
[31:06]I'm being gaselled it because if this were any other minority, that would never be their
[31:11]justification. They wouldn't be, you know, using these legalies arguments in defense of not doing
[31:16]more. And there were times even as, you know, as a Jew myself where I just felt like I feel like
[31:23]this is antisemitism. And I'm being told it's not. Or I'm being, you know, oh no, there are two
[31:28]Jewish students over there. So that's not antisemitic. And again, you're telling me how I'm supposed
[31:35]to be feeling or how I'm feeling is wrong. So I'm thinking if I'm a, you know, 47-year-old journalist
[31:43]who should know better, how are 10-year-old and 12-year-old kids dealing with this at school?
[31:49]And again, it was also one of these things where teachers and schools, I know in our case,
[31:54]and I know throughout the country, because this was such, you know, a tense topic,
[31:59]we're told that they just couldn't talk about the war. And yet there would be little comments here
[32:05]or there that would suggest, well, hey, I think this person thinks this way about the war. I
[32:09]think this person thinks this way or, you know, I had my son say, you know, his friends were asking,
[32:14]do you think the Prime Minister's bad guy, good guy, you know, and just, again, going back to
[32:20]these purity tests where it's, you know, I don't like the government, but I still think Israel's
[32:24]right to exist. And that doesn't apply to any other situations. And all of a sudden, you know, our
[32:30]kids are sort of expected to be geopolitical experts. So I don't know if that answers your question,
[32:37]but it's, it's, I think pervasive.
[32:44]Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I'm curious to hear more too. And if you feel,
[32:49]isn't, you know, obviously, in the setting that you place it is so important that I hear so
[32:54]many anecdotal, same things happening all over. But then also your, your journey to get it
[33:00]published and sort of the silence and the conspiracy of silence sort of, I feel like culturally,
[33:05]there's a lot. And it's also here in LA, which I have definitely a lot of stories of that too,
[33:10]where it's this, I guess it's, yeah, that, that idea that maybe it's not an issue that needs to
[33:17]be addressed even in a larger cultural artistic creative sense. And I wonder, kind of, can speak a
[33:22]little bit more about that. If you, you felt that sort of played a part in it, where it's,
[33:27]the idea that, well, Jewish stories aren't, you know, no one wants to read them or whatever the
[33:34]excuses are or it's to, you know, specific or small. Yeah. There's always some excuse why Jewish
[33:42]stories don't sort of push forward or have the same attention. Yeah. There were sort of the,
[33:47]we found there were the palatable and acceptable Jewish stories. So kindergarteners had tons of
[33:52]books on Hanukkah, high schoolers, you know, were, were given options to read, you know,
[33:59]more in depth about the Holocaust. And then there was nothing in this age group. And there was
[34:04]nothing on the issue of antisemitism as a whole. And I have to say, you know, my, my great publicist is
[34:09]here too as well. And it was, it was meant to be even meeting, because we were meeting at an event,
[34:15]we met an event on antisemitism in New York. And as she was even trying to, to pitch this
[34:22]book to other outlets in major publications, they would say, you know, we're not going to,
[34:29]we're going to pass. We're not going to, we're not going to talk about this or in their parenting
[34:32]publications too. And so Hilary said, you know, she went online to look at, okay, well, what, what
[34:37]are there other works or what have they printed and published and promoted about antisemitism? And
[34:43]the only thing she found was how to talk to your kids about Christmas envy. And these are just such
[34:48]superficial topics. And it, it just goes to show that there was a real void and, I think,
[34:55]deliberate avoidance of dealing with this. And I finally,
[35:00]you know, speaking out, I'll be the first to say the media has gotten a lot of things wrong
[35:03]and we should acknowledge that. And we try to course correct and get things right all the time.
[35:08]I mean, we're not perfect and we learn from our mistakes. And I think, you know, CNN,
[35:13]whatever people may think of it, I think has done a lot better than some of our other competitors
[35:17]on trying to at least be balanced and telling stories. And I work with some, you know, fearless
[35:22]colleagues as well. But after I've been speaking about this issue and being invited to speak
[35:28]a number of Jewish organizations and this is, you know, as I was writing the book
[35:32]and constantly asked about, well, why is the media doing this? And it's the media's fault and
[35:36]it's the coverage and X, Y, and Z. And I finally said, well, let me tell you a story. I'm trying to
[35:40]write a book on antisemitism. And I can't find one publisher to publish my book. And, you know, all of
[35:46]you, so it's not just the media. There are other industries that are to blame here and are complicit
[35:52]for their silence. And then people who were there at certain events would come up to me and say,
[35:58]oh, my, my daughter works at this publishing house. Or I know the head of this, here,
[36:01]call them, they will fix it. And, you know, they didn't fix it. So I think it's a bigger issue
[36:08]than we've acknowledged. And I think for all the reasons that have been discussed here already.
[36:13]Do you think that might have something to do with all those hundreds of authors that have signed that BES?
[36:20]I mean, this was even before that. This was even before. I mean, remember, we started,
[36:25]we submitted this book in December of 23. So the war had started, again, wars are never, you know,
[36:33]pretty. But this was before all of the headlines, before this became sort of a wall-to-wall,
[36:38]you know, for the genocide calls and all that. So this was in December when we were told that
[36:44]there's not a market for this book or this type of book and for this genre. So we just thought,
[36:50]okay, there's definitely a dearth of material for this genre. Like, people need to write more smart
[36:56]books for kids this age because they get it. And they understand what's happening in the world.
[37:00]And then on top of that, a subject that no one's really touching upon, but almost every kid,
[37:05]Jewish and non-Jewish, has experienced or has heard about when we were in this, and again,
[37:09]it's New York, but still we went to a school and I would say half of the audience wasn't Jewish.
[37:14]And when I asked how many of you guys know what antisemitism is or heard it or heard somebody
[37:18]that experienced it, every hand went up. So it's definitely, I think there's a desire from students
[37:25]to talk about this as well. It's like it's being almost intentionally avoided. And that's never,
[37:30]that doesn't end well when you don't talk about an elephant in the room at that point.
[37:37]Do you think there's going to be resistance from educators? I mean, I guess you talked a little
[37:42]bit before about the idea. It's so intertwined now in Israel. Is there any way to even separate
[37:49]those two issues? I did a stupid thing where I looked at the comments on Goodreads for
[37:54]Eli Weissell's night, and I want to see what the one started. The first one that came up was
[37:59]I was an educator and I won't teach this anymore because Eli Weissell never spoke out about the
[38:04]genocide that Israel's perpetuating. I'm like, what? It was really, it was, I shouldn't have
[38:10]been down there, but I know. No, well, I mean, we all go down these rabbit holes. The minute I open my
[38:15]phone to, and it's so sad because Twitter used to be my go-to site when I wake up first thing
[38:21]in the morning because I would curate it and follow, you know, trusted news sites, colleagues,
[38:28]and would be able in two minutes to at least get a sense of what's happened overnight in the world.
[38:33]And then, you know, as the morning progresses, then I read more in depth in the newspapers
[38:37]themselves. But it was more, it was much more of a trusted site at that point. And now you open it,
[38:43]and it's just like this black hole. It's a sewer. And I know the algorithms play a role as well,
[38:50]but, you know, and it's meant to incite you. But the amount of antisemitism on that site
[38:56]is just insane. And from the right and from the left, and, you know, I know kids have reacted
[39:01]in all types of ways to October 7th and the increase in October and antisemitism. And for my son,
[39:07]I'll say anecdotally, who was sort of, you know, we were Jewish, like, you know, who's Jewish,
[39:13]we went to synagogue from time to time, we were reformed. And after October 7th, he became
[39:19]very, very much engaged in the subject matter, his own heritage. He wanted to be bar mitzvah
[39:24]in Israel. We went in March for his bar mitzvah. And he became very conservative in his politics.
[39:30]I mean, and it wasn't for many of my husband worked in, you know, in the Obama administration
[39:34]years ago. And he's technically still a Democrat. I'm, you know, independent. And so he on his own
[39:42]became very right wing. And on this one issue, he was like a single issue voter at the age of 12 and
[39:48]13. And so he kept saying, well, listen, you know, they're, they're the right isn't as antisemitic
[39:53]as the left because he would view all of their comments and, and criticism is, of Israel as,
[39:59]as antisemitic.
[40:00]all of them are, but it did seem like a lot of it was. And now he's in a really sensitive place,
[40:08]where I think he's very confused to see now that people he was following on the right,
[40:11]all of a sudden he's getting anti-Semitism from some of these people that he, you know, was listening
[40:16]to or they're becoming very defensive within their own party about fighting against
[40:20]anti-Semitism. And so he said, well, they're still like, they're still fewer than on the left,
[40:26]right, and you're thinking, this is how we're raising our kids to find a party that has the
[40:30]least amount of anti of, you know, self-described anti-Semites. So I don't know how this ends,
[40:36]I'd like to think that still doesn't reflect on the country as a whole. What we're seeing on
[40:42]social media, it's just like the extremes, but educators play a huge role. What's happening on
[40:48]college campuses plays a huge role. I think a lot of this has been building up for decades. Some of
[40:54]of these protests and things that we saw were pretty well organized. October 8th, 9th, 10th, right.
[41:00]And so I think, you know, going back, there was probably a lot happening under, you know,
[41:05]under our noses that we just weren't paying attention to. And, and I don't know how to fix it
[41:12]other than talking about it. And, you know, books matter. Like we're in a bookstore that carries,
[41:17]you know, a lot of people want history, they know where to go. And, you know, TikTok and social
[41:23]media is not the solution. No. No. And, and they can now tailor which books they want to read.
[41:31]You know, the fact that there are people who are trying to rehabilitate Hitler and Stalin and,
[41:38]you know, now Churchill was the culprit for World War II and it's all happened. So it's coming
[41:44]out as so quickly. And I think it speaks to a lack of leadership in general for not addressing
[41:52]this head-on. And, you know, what we're saying in this book, the teachers and principles aren't
[41:56]doing. I think in reality, our leaders are failing to do. You know, the, the constant stream of
[42:03]information that we weren't experienced, that we didn't experience 10 or 15 years ago. Just constantly
[42:09]it's created, it's created. I don't know if it's an alternate reality, but it's created a reality.
[42:15]And so I sometimes wonder is the reality that exists in pixels and that seems,
[42:21]you know, just constant never ending and just dark, really, you know, it's coming from all
[42:28]the groups that we do it in. Do we yet know how that aligns or matches up with the non-pixel reality?
[42:37]Like you mentioned, we don't know like what people, what is the average American? What do people
[42:42]feel if you get them into a room and have a conversation with them? What we know is that people are
[42:47]at a, on their column alone in a room, they'll say that the most horrible thing. Yeah.
[42:52]So being in the media, do you have, do you have like any sense of what is, what is real
[43:00]versus what is pixel real? I mean, we try our best to get out of, you know, our bubbles,
[43:05]whether it's New York, Washington, go out to the country, you know, and talk to people. I think
[43:12]polling, however much it's still, you know, accurate really matters too because at its core,
[43:18]that's the only way you can aggregate a country's mood and temperature. You know, some of the
[43:24]things we're talking about on a day-to-day basis or, you know, whatever a president may be tweeting
[43:28]or posting or what have you. I think most people in the country are busy with their own lives
[43:33]and don't pay attention to it. But I still think they turn to the media. And even for older
[43:39]generations, Facebook for a long time was the number one news site, right, for older
[43:43]demographics. You're seeing our numbers completely plummet for network news and for even cable news
[43:50]and the cord cutting is real. We're now competing where everyone is a journalist in the sense
[43:55]that they all have phones. And it's helpful and useful for us on the one hand when somebody's
[44:00]in a country and something's just happened and we're seeing things in real life and real time
[44:05]posted. But we still need a fact check. And is this something that, you know, people posted
[44:11]because they wanted to make a political point or is this what's happening? Or sometimes you'll look
[44:16]at instances of war or a terror attack and only come to find out completely different country,
[44:22]five-year-old video. So, you know, we're fortunate to be able to have the resources to still
[44:28]fact check and, you know, it's not about getting there first, but getting it right. Even early in the
[44:33]war in Gaza, you remember what happened with the hospital and Biden had to cancel his trip and
[44:38]it looked like there could be, you know, major uproar throughout the region. And so, you know,
[44:46]things are happening real time real quickly. It's given social media and the speed with which news
[44:51]spreads. It makes our jobs that much more important, but that much harder too because you're losing
[44:57]an audience. And...
[45:00]And they're getting their information from social media.
[45:03]And I think some of the standards that we're held to as journalists are not the case for
[45:09]social media.
[45:10]If we posted some of the garbage that, you know, is on people's phones, we'd be sued
[45:15]and rightly so.
[45:17]And, you know, a lot of these companies get away with it.
[45:21]And TikTok is a big problem.
[45:22]Do you have parents put their background in having lived in the Soviet Union and see
[45:28]an element of, you know, propaganda or foreign propaganda, because I have read that there
[45:34]is an analogy to the way propaganda was created and spread behind me, you know, in the
[45:39]Soviet Union.
[45:40]For sure.
[45:41]I mean, even now I told you Gary Casper off was at this event on Tuesday and he, you
[45:45]know, he's a staunch Putin critic.
[45:47]But we were talking about the war and I've gotten to know him through his, through covering
[45:51]the war in Ukraine as well.
[45:53]And he made it an important point because Israel, I mean, Russia has been able to continue
[45:58]to fund this war.
[45:59]It's been, you know, completely in a wartime putting now.
[46:02]And you know, inflation's gone through the roof.
[46:04]I mean, this can only last for them for a few more years at this pace.
[46:07]But he's 100% invested in this war.
[46:10]It's existential to him at this point.
[46:13]And they've cut the budget in every single public, every single sphere, industry, sector,
[46:20]except for propaganda.
[46:23]That is the only part that he's kept, I think he's increased the budget because he knows
[46:28]if he still got to tell his people why this war is justifiable and why it's worth fighting.
[46:34]And, you know, at a time when trust in major US institutions, if not all of them, have been
[46:41]eroding journalism included, you know, what I really worry about is that journalism will
[46:49]be chipped and chipped and chipped away until it's not as relevant.
[46:53]And it's only after the fact it will realize how important it is.
[46:58]I appreciate you all coming.
[47:09]I hope you like the book.
[47:12]This is, you know, this is the most important professional thing.
[47:15]I've just changed me as a person, you know, learning a lot from kids.
[47:20]I was the most nervous about what my kids would think of this book and they actually
[47:24]enjoyed it.
[47:25]And it's not meant to be a didactic book, it's meant to be an entertaining read for kids
[47:31]and something that I think perhaps consciously subconsciously they'll be able to grasp.
[47:36]This is something that I will remember if I see it again.
[47:40]And chances are they'll see things like this.
[47:43]And it's just to be just empathy, you know, it goes a long way, it really does.
[47:49]And so I hope that those are some of the takeaways people have from the book.
[47:54]Thank you so much.
[47:57]Thank you for having me.
[48:01]Well, thank you for having me.
[48:04]Lovely.
[48:05]We have more for books here.
[48:07]Thank you.
[48:14]Thanks for coming in this weather.
[48:17]Thank you.
[48:18]Really appreciate it.