War Writing Week

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks observed that “Jews have survived catastrophe after catastrophe, in a way unparalleled by any other culture. In each case, they did more than survive. Every tragedy in Jewish history was followed by a new wave of creativity” (Future Tense, ch. 3). It is too soon to say what the form and content of that new wave of creativity we anticipate will arrive when our current struggle in Israel ends.

In TRADITION’s special issue commemorating fifty years since the Yom Kippur War (Summer 2023), I naively believed I was writing about ancient history, only to be surprised that the past is prologue when we reached October 7 just a few weeks later. Discussing R. Haim Sabato’s Adjusting Sights, the undisputed “great Israeli novel” of that 1973 war, I recalled that it took a quarter-century for a work of stunning literary creative response to appear. It should not be surprising. Rarely is great art produced when we are still in the labyrinth searching for a way out. The metaphoric “fog of war” clouds our vision when we’re still in the thick of it.

Nevertheless, even at this early date, we have begun to witness the emergence of creative responses to the events of Simchat Torah 2023 and its long aftermath.  That some of the more significant products have been delivered from within our own Modern Orthodox community, both in Israel and abroad, makes these works doubly worthy of our attention. This week TraditionOnline will run excerpts from three new works composed in English by authors who are no strangers to our readers:

• Erica Brown, Morning Has Broken: Faith After October 7th (Toby Press).
• Moshe Taragin, Dark Clouds Above, Faith Below (Yeshivat Har Etzion & Kodesh Press).
• New tefillot by Rachel Sharansky Danziger from Az Nashir—We Will Sing Again: Women’s Prayers for Our Time of Need, compiled and edited by Shira Lankin Sheps, Rachel Sharansky Danziger, and Anne Gordon (Shvilli Center).

On Thursday we’ll release a podcast conversation with the authors about their writing, the challenge of responding “from the gut” in real-time, and how powerful and responsive works of this nature impact in their moment and resonate across the years.