This piece is part of our Wit­ness­ing series, which shares pieces from Israeli authors and authors in Israel, as well as the expe­ri­ences of Jew­ish writ­ers around the globe in the after­math of Octo­ber 7th.

It is crit­i­cal to under­stand his­to­ry not just through the books that will be writ­ten lat­er, but also through the first-hand tes­ti­monies and real-time account­ing of events as they occur. At Jew­ish Book Coun­cil, we under­stand the val­ue of these writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ni­als and of shar­ing these indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences. It’s more impor­tant now than ever to give space to these voic­es and narratives.

When I began seek­ing expo­sure for The Boy in the Back, I knew it would take hard work. Every author must search for an audi­ence, and I sus­pect­ed that find­ing read­ers for a Holo­caust survivor’s mem­oir might be unique­ly dif­fi­cult. Still, I nev­er antic­i­pat­ed the par­tic­u­lar kind of resis­tance I would encounter.

I began with high hopes because my book felt dif­fer­ent, pair­ing con­tem­po­rary por­tions along­side the mem­oir. The Boy in the Back was born as a direct con­se­quence of Octo­ber 7 and jux­ta­pos­es sur­vivor Jan Blumenstein’s tes­ti­mo­ny with today’s real­i­ty, offer­ing a stark warn­ing about ris­ing hatred and the dan­gers of silence. I believed, per­haps naive­ly, that the urgency would res­onate, yet the path to find­ing read­ers has been uneven, some­times baf­fling, and increas­ing­ly shaped by forces beyond the book itself.

Some of the hes­i­tan­cy has been qui­et but unmis­tak­able: unan­swered emails, promis­ing invi­ta­tions that sim­ply dis­solve, com­mu­ni­ty groups that pull back once they learn the sub­ject, and orga­ni­za­tions that show ini­tial excite­ment but fade away with­out expla­na­tion. These pat­terns are not dra­mat­ic or explic­it­ly hos­tile, but tak­en togeth­er, they leave me with the ques­tion, why are peo­ple step­ping away?

One unavoid­able expla­na­tion is the pro­found shift in atti­tudes after Octo­ber 7. That day did not sim­ply shock Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties, it reshaped glob­al dis­course, frac­tured long-stand­ing assump­tions, and inten­si­fied reac­tions to any­thing con­nect­ed to Jew­ish his­to­ry, the Jew­ish expe­ri­ence, or Jew­ish trau­ma. I became keen­ly aware of a height­ened sen­si­tiv­i­ty in the very spaces where Holo­caust mem­o­ry once felt safe and uncon­tro­ver­sial. Indeed, I began to real­ize that for some peo­ple, engag­ing with Jew­ish his­to­ry now feels fraught, as though acknowl­edg­ing one part of Jew­ish expe­ri­ence might imply tak­ing a posi­tion on anoth­er. It isn’t log­i­cal or fair, but it is happening.

The change is not the­o­ret­i­cal. Invi­ta­tions that once would have moved for­ward now qui­et­ly stall. Inter­est that once seemed gen­uine now turns hes­i­tant. Of course, the Holo­caust itself has not changed, but the world’s will­ing­ness to talk about it has. I am con­vinced that Octo­ber 7 has left peo­ple more reac­tive, more cau­tious, and in some cas­es more con­fused about how to respond to Jew­ish nar­ra­tives of any kind. It may be that the con­nec­tion between past and present feels uncom­fort­ably close, or that the top­ic now feels ​“risky.” What­ev­er the per­son­al rea­son, the influ­ence of Octo­ber 7 is impos­si­ble to sep­a­rate from the reluc­tance I now encounter.

Anoth­er expla­na­tion is one I hear from many peo­ple: emo­tion­al fatigue. After years of the pan­dem­ic, var­i­ous con­flicts, polit­i­cal divi­sion, and eco­nom­ic anx­i­ety, peo­ple are emo­tion­al­ly drained. The Holo­caust is heavy, and when dai­ly life is already uncer­tain, engag­ing with dif­fi­cult his­to­ry can feel over­whelm­ing. This par­tic­u­lar reluc­tance is not about hos­til­i­ty but about deple­tion. In times like these, peo­ple seek com­fort, escape, or qui­et, and sto­ries that demand moral reflec­tion may sim­ply feel like too much.

There is also the hor­rif­ic rise in anti­semitism to con­sid­er. While it does not always appear in loud or explic­it ways, it may show up as hes­i­ta­tion, avoid­ance, or dis­tanc­ing. Orga­ni­za­tions side­step Jew­ish top­ics. Cul­tur­al groups grow cau­tious. Peo­ple who once expressed easy empa­thy now grow uncer­tain or even resis­tant. After Octo­ber 7, this dis­tanc­ing has become stronger in some cir­cles. Holo­caust mem­o­ry has, for some, become some­thing to tip­toe around or even dis­en­gage from. This qui­et avoid­ance is painful, espe­cial­ly when our pur­pose — Jan’s and mine — in putting his tes­ti­mo­ny on paper, was to illu­mi­nate exact­ly where such dis­tanc­ing can lead. 

And there is the dif­fi­cul­ty of the book mar­ket­place itself — it can feel crowd­ed, algo­rith­mic, and com­mer­cial. Oppor­tu­ni­ties that once depend­ed on mer­it, rel­e­vance, or jour­nal­is­tic curios­i­ty now hinge on mar­ket­ing budgets. 

And yet, despite all of this, there are read­ers — thought­ful, atten­tive read­ers — who write to tell me how deeply Jan’s sto­ry has affect­ed them. They describe see­ing the present moment dif­fer­ent­ly. They speak about his­to­ry com­ing alive. Many of them, with­out any prompt­ing, draw a direct con­nec­tion between Jan’s expe­ri­ences and the moral alarm sound­ed by Octo­ber 7. They under­stand that the val­ue of mem­o­ry lies in its abil­i­ty to illu­mi­nate the present.

These respons­es remind me why I spent months in inten­sive inter­views and con­duct­ed exten­sive research to pre­serve Jan’s voice with clar­i­ty and dig­ni­ty. He want­ed the world to under­stand what hap­pens when hatred is ignored or explained away. If there was ever a moment when that warn­ing need­ed to be heard, it is now.

The resis­tance to The Boy in the Back does not mean the sto­ry is no longer rel­e­vant. More like­ly, it means it touch­es a truth the world is strug­gling to face. And that is pre­cise­ly why it must con­tin­ue to be told.

The views and opin­ions expressed above are those of the author, based on their obser­va­tions and experiences.

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