HBR:  What inspired you to write A Human Rights Odyssey: From Dreams Deferred to Reconciliation?

A Human Rights Odyssey: From Dreams Deferred to Reconciliation is the third novel of a trilogy beginning with The Ballad of East and West and The Secret of Redemption. In the first novel, Rabbi Isaac Levin was a young man who was involved in Soviet Jewry in the 1980s and travelled to the Soviet Union to visit refuseniks and Russian Hebrew teachers. Some of the readers wanted to know what happened to some of the people that he met in the Soviet Union.  

The Secret of Redemption, which was set thirty years later, was partially written to answer these questions. In addition, Rabbi Isaac Levin sought to expand the use of a synagogue in Northern Manhattan from an institution which served only a single institution to an interfaith community center that would rent space to both secular and non-Jewish religious communities.  Secondly, Rabbi Levin got involved in the sanctuary movement and regularly visited a family housed in a sanctuary church which was only a short distance from his synagogue.  He received pushback from some synagogue leaders for his initiatives. The novel reviews the history of racism in America which has led to the current immigration crisis.  The plot is split screen. On the other side of the Atlantic, his daughter, Bracha in her capacity as a human rights activist is on the frontlines of the Israel-Palestinian crisis. By the end of the novel, the interfaith community center was established.

A Human Rights Odyssey: From Dreams Deferred to Reconciliation takes place only a few months after the second novel.  Rabbi Levin and his non-Jewish colleagues are planning their first ever interfaith Thanksgiving celebration.  He learns of the senseless shooting of Michael Brown in his hometown and later of the murder of Tina Fontaine in Winnipeg where he worked for ten years.  This leads him to reflect on his activism from the Civil Rights era to the present.  Most of this novel is a flashback.  It ends with the interfaith Thanksgiving service.  Because the killing in Ferguson was so personal and because I wanted to continue the Levin saga, the third novel was born.

HBR: How much of the book is drawn from your personal experiences versus broader historical or societal influences?

Much of the novel is autobiographical.  However, to protect the identity of some of the characters, I changed many of the names and to create a good story, I manufactured some of the incidents as well as the plotline. The story is about how Rabbi Levin, an ordinary rabbi, was thrown into extraordinary circumstances and how he reacted to monumental historical conditions such as the Civil Rights Movement and 9/11.

HBR:  What core message do you hope readers take away after finishing your work?

The core message is that all human beings are created in God’s image and that ordinary human beings have both the obligation and capacity to promote social justice in whatever setting they find themselves in.  Ordinary human beings are capable of extraordinary achievements.

HBR:  Did your perspective on justice or equality evolve while writing this book?

One of the cornerstones of the trilogy and certainly of the current book is the evolution of Isaac Levin’s character.  In the Civil Rights era, he was primarily a spectator.  When it came to Soviet Jewry, justice for Jewish inmates, or 9/11, Isaac Levin reacted to various crises.  Towards the end of his career, he became proactive: initiating Jewish-Muslim and Jewish-Black dialogue, taking a mixed group of teenagers to the Deep South, or helping to build an interfaith community center.  Activists are often all three at the same time: spectators, reactors, and initiators.  As a teenager, Rabbi Levin was not socially aware, nor particularly empathetic. That took decades to develop. Rabbi Levin’s process was like my process. 

HBR:  What was the most challenging part of writing this book?

A Human Rights Odyssey covers significant distance:  St. Louis, Missouri to Hamilton, Ohio, London, Birmingham, England, Paris, three cities in the former Soviet Union, Jackson, Michigan, two Canadian cities, the Deep South, and New York.  Furthermore, the story covers decades from the 1960s to the present.  The challenge was to create a coherent story which does not appear disjointed.  On the contrary, every chapter is deliberate and builds on all of the previous chapters.

HBR:  Did you conduct specific research or interviews to support your narrative?

For both The Secret of Redemption and A Human Rights Odyssey, it’s safe to say that I read at least 40-50 books.  Writing serious historical fiction means getting historical events correct.  Moreover, in A Human Rights Odyssey, I interviewed both faculty members and classmates that were with me during the racial unrest of 1970, resulting in a student lockout at University City High School.  I also interviewed a couple of Black students who were involved in the unrest. The chief motivation was to provide a fact check as to the accuracy of my observations.  Although I wish to honor my own perception, I realize that I could not speak for all my classmates, particularly the Black students.  I wanted to make sure that my writing reflected the diverse views of the student body at that time. I am referring to the chapter entitled, “The Language of the Unheard.”  When it came to the Civil Rights period, I also immersed myself in many civil rights movies to be able to portray the empathy that is required by a person like Rabbi Isaac Levin.

HBR:  How long did it take you to complete the manuscript?

The first draft took one year.  Subsequent editing took several more months.  The publishing process which involved even more editing took about another year.  As Rod Serling, the very creative writer of The Twilight Zone once said, “A manuscript is not written.  It is rewritten.”

HBR:  What did you learn about yourself through this journey?

I learned much about my own evolution as both a human rights activist and as a writer.  I dabbled in writing just over ten years ago and did not expect to write anything after The Ballad of East and West.  Since then I have written two more novels and will likely write one more novel about the life of Rabbi Isaac Levin.

HBR:  What advice would you give to aspiring writers who want to tackle complex social issues?

Effective writers must also be prolific readers.  If an author wishes to write historical fiction or tackle complex social issues, he or she must make sure that all the information is accurate.  Realizing that most authors, including myself, have specific biases, a writer must be prepared to entertain a spectrum of views so that his or her treatment of social issues is nuanced, sophisticated, and fair.  Secondly, emphasis must be placed on showing rather than telling.  I have fallen into the trap myself.  For historical or social fiction to be effective, the reader must feel that he or she is immersed in the period which is being portrayed.

HBR:  Do you plan to continue writing on similar themes in future projects?

Yes.  My fourth novel will continue Rabbi Levin’s story.  It will apply Leo Tolstoy’s theory of history to the twenty-first century.  It will operate on the premise that the so-called “Great Men” of this century are no better than Napoleon from the nineteenth century.  History is propelled and social progress is achieved not by Great Men, but by the extraordinary deeds performed by ordinary people.  It will be governed by the Talmudic maxim, “All is foreseen, but free will is given. This motif was implied in my first three novels but will become far more explicit in my next book.

HBR:  If you could sum up your book in one sentence, what would it be?

While there are diverse religions and ethnicities in this world, serious social progress will only be achieved when people realize that all human beings are created in God’s image and acknowledge the interdependence of humanity.