Why I Deleted My Book on Fighting Antisemitism and Started Over

I’ve spent my life writing about Jewish issues, shaped by my family’s history and my own experiences. This book needs to reflect that personal connection to offer something unique.

I cross the finish line at the Sleeping Bear Half-Marathon in Northern Michigan on October 7, 2023—my fifty-eighth birthday.

On October 7, 2023, I turned fifty-eight years old. It should have been a day of joy. I felt better than I had in years—physically, because I had trained all summer for a 13.1-mile race, and emotionally, because my novel had just been accepted by a publisher. My spirits were high as I lined up at the start of the Sleeping Bear Half-Marathon, flanked by my two teenage boys.

Then everything changed.

News of the massacre in Israel reached me before the race began. It haunted me as I ran. When I finally crossed the finish line and could reconnect to the world, the reality was even worse than I had feared.

I don’t have to tell anyone reading this that the trauma was magnified by the world’s reaction to the slaughter of 1,200 Israelis. Instead of rallying to our defense, the hateful clamor grew more thunderous — demanding more Jewish blood even as the bodies were still being counted.

For weeks, I went through every stage of grief. I stopped running, turned away from taking care of my health, and sank into darkness as new horrors unfolded every day.

But eventually, I decided I couldn’t keep spiraling. I had to take action. Everybody has to contribute in their own way, and the only thing I know how to do reasonably well is write. That’s when I committed myself to a book on how to fight antisemitism. I called it From Outrage to Action: A Practical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism. I planned to use the skills I’d honed over my near four decades as a journalist, interviewing experts and ordinary people who were pushing back against Jew-hatred. My goal was to give our community something desperately needed — a resistance manual of sorts.

The project gained momentum. I announced it on social media, appeared on podcasts, and even launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to support it. I began interviewing people from across the Jewish spectrum and documenting their stories of courage.

And then… I deleted everything and started over.

The writers among you will understand that this is a normal part of the process. The draft felt too focused on other people’s opinions and fleeting headlines, and that wasn’t what I wanted to convey. I didn’t want this book to simply recap what others have said or react to the latest news.

To understand why, it’s important to look at my own story.

To some extent, I’ve been writing this book about fighting antisemitism my entire life. My family’s experiences with antisemitism, along with my own, have shaped who I am. Growing up, I heard the stories of Holocaust survivors in my family. They became part of my story. They are the reason I became a writer in the first place. I’ve carried this history with me all my life and it has always driven me to speak out.

This connection makes it impossible to separate my personal journey from the broader fight against antisemitism. I realized that for this project to be truly meaningful, it needed to be grounded in my own story. It couldn’t rest solely on interviews and expert opinions.

My own experiences—from growing up in racist and antisemitic Georgia in the early ’70s to confronting antisemitism in college, to my work as managing editor at JTA, and now my advocacy within the Jewish literary community—had to be woven into the narrative. Only then could this book offer not just a record of antisemitism, but a deeper, more personal understanding of how to confront it.

Two essential things need to happen before we can effectively fight antisemitism: Jews need unity, and we need allies. When I was growing up, my family was deeply involved in the movement to save Soviet Jewry. This was a time when the Jewish community, across all political and religious lines, came together to fight for the freedom of the Jews trapped in the USSR. It was the last time I remember seeing true Jewish unity on a global scale. In fact, my family even hosted a former refusenik in our home. That experience taught me the power of what we can achieve when we stand together for a common cause.

Unfortunately, today that sense of unity has fractured. Political divisions run so deep that Jews are quick to turn on each other, often hurling insults like "kapo" at anyone who doesn’t back their chosen candidate. We’ve lost sight of the bigger picture—how dangerous it is to be divided when antisemitism is on the rise.

In my book, I want to explore how we can relearn the lessons of the Soviet Jewry era and apply them to today’s challenges. By looking back at a time when we were able to set aside our differences and unite for a greater cause, we can better understand what’s needed now.

But Jewish unity alone isn’t enough—we need allies, even those we’ve been hesitant to partner with in the past. Evangelical Christians have become some of our strongest supporters. While their backing of Israel may stem from apocalyptic beliefs we find uncomfortable, they aren’t calling for our destruction. At the same time, we need to ensure that we are not subsumed by their agenda, much of which does not conform to Jewish values. And we should also be wary of Christian denominations like the Presbyterian Church (USA), which uses "liberation theology" as a basis for antisemitic boycotts of Israel. Still, we can all meet where it works for all of us. The reality is, in this current crisis, alliances matter more than ever. As Georgia State Representative Esther Panitch has shown through her work, partnerships with Christian communities can lead to real progress in the fight against antisemitism.

I had initially been working on a memoir that combined personal and historical aspects of antisemitism. But after the events of October 7th, I realized how important it was to bring these elements together in a way that helps us face the uncertain future. Now I see that my story can serve as a framework to better understand and respond to the challenges we’re dealing with today.

This shift in focus has taken more time than I expected. While I’ve stayed committed to the project, balancing my work as a book editor, podcaster, and journalist has slowed things down a bit. But that extra time has allowed me to make this book even more meaningful.

Maybe it’s narcissistic to include my own experience in this book, but it’s the only way I can make connections that readers might be able to relate to. I’m not just writing about people who are fighting antisemitism—I’m becoming part of the story myself. After encountering antisemitism in the literary world and seeing how Zionist authors are increasingly marginalized, I’ve joined forces with Elissa Wald to launch a Jewish publishing company and, of course, this magazine. Our goal is to create a space where Jewish voices can be heard without fear of exclusion.

Now, nearly a year after October 7, the stresses of the past year have taken their toll. I’m less healthy physically, and insomnia has become a constant companion. But writing this book and working as the nonfiction editor of Judith has pulled me out of the abyss and given me hope. My goal is that, along the way, this work will give others hope, too — that we can and will face these challenges together.

And that together, we will prevail.

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Howard Lovy is a book editor, journalist, and author with forty years of experience at newspapers, magazines, and news services. He’s the former managing editor at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, where he led coverage of issues ranging from peace talks to Birthright Israel. Recently, his commentaries on Jewish issues have appeared in JTA, The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, The Algemeiner, Publishers Weekly, The Jerusalem Post, and other publications, in addition to his own Substack. He is also nonfiction editor for the Jewish literary magazine, Judith. In addition to his work as a journalist and book editor, Howard is a podcast producer and host for the Alliance of Independent Authors and a former executive editor of Foreword Reviews. His novel, Found and Lost: The Jake and Cait Story, will be published in April 2025 by Vine Leaves Press. He lives in Northern Michigan with his wife, Heidi, and their dog, Henry. Discover more about Howard on his website.

Five tiny delights

• Walking my dog, Henry, on wooded trails

• Embarrassing my two sons

• Discovering a book that makes me literally laugh out loud

• Writing

• Running

Five tiny Jewish delights

• Lighting the menorah I inherited from my mother (Z”L)   

• Listening to Leonard Cohen

• Connecting with Jews around the world through my work

• Seder with my six brothers and their families, and telling the same “jokes” every year

• Brisket