A recent trip to Israel and Jordan made me consider why the three great monotheistic religions flourished and spread from that region. For me, the best reason was the fact that these religions were nurtured first by the spoken word and then by the written word. Increasingly, their followers set down on paper the theological narratives, Old and New Testaments, and later, the Koran, followed by written interpretations of these narratives. Following them came the historians. My favorite on this trip was Flavius Josephus and his 1st century AD account of the siege of Masada, and Egeria, a 3rd century nun who kept a travel diary of her visit to the Holy Land, where she describes a visit to the house in Capernaum, thought to be that of St. Peter.
Now, as well as then, writers remain mankind's historical conscience, whether they are creating fiction or recording facts. The highlight of my trip was when I met Sister Gemma Del Duca, a nun who is Co-Founder and Co-Director of the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education in Jerusalem. When I told her about Meg Wiviott's picture book on Kristallnacht (listed on this blog) she practically leaped into the air. "There's not enough being written for children about the Holocaust," she said. "We need more. Much more."
Writers, whatever your topic, keep on writing! The world needs to hear from you.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Writers Needed
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I went to the middle east when I was a kid and it had such a huge impact on me. What an amazing place. My dad's family is Jewish so it was meaninful to me. My grandfather's house was blown up in Jerusalem too! I've always wanted to write his story but I'm afraid I wouldn't do it justice.
ReplyDeleteLinda - thanks for spreading the word on BENNO. Here's hoping he's one day printed in Hebrew. "Next year in Jerusalem"
ReplyDeleteOh, how I envy your travel! And how grateful I am for the next best thing to being there -- reading about it!
ReplyDeleteYes, perhaps the world would be a better place if, for example,there were more level-headed and engaging books for Americans about the Muslim world and the same sort of titles for them about us.
ReplyDeleteChristina, if you can't do it, no one can. The nun I met said, all you need for a story is a person's name, where he was from, and what he did. She is determined, while she lives, to add as many of these names, with their origins and what they did to the books of memory at Yad Vashem. There is a story in each one of them.
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