I asked YA author Leanne Lieberman to do a guest post for As The Page Turns. Thank you Leanne for sharing the story behind your writing and how you came to write the books you have. Now I’ll turn the blog over to Leanne.
Thanks to Page for inviting me to write on her blog. I'm Leanne Lieberman and I'm the author of two YA novels with Jewish themes. I never planned to write about Jewish topics, or about faith, but it seems to be a recurring idea in my writing. I’m curious what makes someone religious, and what tensions draw people away from their religious communities.
My first book, Gravity is about an orthodox Jewish girl, Ellie, who falls in love with another girl. When she realizes her religion condemns her homosexual feelings, Ellie starts to question her religious beliefs.
Since I’m not orthodox myself, I’m frequently asked how I came to write this book. I come from a conservative Jewish background, and while my family growing up observed many traditional holidays and Jewish cultural events, we didn’t follow Jewish law, such as keeping the Sabbath as a day of rest, or keeping kosher. I didn’t know much about the details of Judaism until my best friend became “religious.” As a young adult, I thought this was ridiculous. I couldn’t understand why she would restrict her life with so many rules. When I asked her why she was bent on keeping Jewish law, she told me it was to bring more God into her life. An awkward moment followed. She believed keeping the Sabbath was going to make the world better because God said so? I was both embarrassed by her and for her.
Although my friend and I led quite different lives during our university years, we still stayed close. When I had mice in my apartment (I lived next to Schwartz’s restaurant in Montreal) I stayed with her for a weekend and experienced a Sabbath at her place. There was good food, friends and singing. I noticed that not doing any work on the Sabbath was a very peaceful experience. I thought, maybe she knew something I didn’t know.
Over time I decided to learn more about Judaism and even attend a yeshiva, a seminary in Israel. It was a time of profound learning for me. I grappled with my own ideas of divinity and spirituality, of community and prayer. I even briefly considered becoming observant myself. Ultimately I didn’t, for several reasons that come out in my two books, Gravity and The Book of Trees.
During my stay in Israel, my younger brother came to visit me and while we were on a walk he told me was gay. He happened to tell me just as we wandered into a Chassidic (very religious) neighbourhood. My brother being gay was not a big deal to my family. No one cared what the bible had to say about his sexuality. But I remember standing in that religious neighbourhood and thinking, what if one of these children had to tell their parents they were gay. What would that be like? It was enough narrative tension to want to make me write Gravity.
When I finished Gravity, I knew I wanted to write another book about a character who wasn’t from a religious background but became orthodox. In Judaism, these people are called “Ba’al teshuva,” literally returnees to the fold, or born again Jews. I wanted to explore what made someone want to take on the rules and restrictions of orthodox life. I’d seen a number of young women become “ba’al teshuva” during my experiences in Jerusalem. I knew they were drawn by a greater spiritual life and a tight community. I wondered, would it be easy to stay in those communities and leave their old lives behind? What problems would they have?
I had loved my experience at yeshiva in Jerusalem. Israel was a complex and fascinating place to live. But it wasn’t perfect. Throughout my stay I thought about the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Yet, it wasn’t until I took a graduate course on Israel and Palestine that I started to understand the underpinnings of the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian lands. I became so uncomfortable about the way the bible inspired not only religious devotion, but political brutality, than I knew I had to write about it. My main character Mia explores this tension between spiritual devotion and political reality in my new novel, The Book of Trees.
Lots of other things perplex me about Judaism, so I envision other YA books with Jewish themes, and I’m sure they’ll bring up questions of faith too.
Thanks for having me on the blog. There’s lots more information about my books at
www.leannelieberman.comHappy Reading!
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