Struggling with the ups and downs of a global pandemic, journalist and author Sarah Tuttle-Singer and scholar in residence at UJA-Federation of New York Rabbi Menachem Creditor teamed up to create a compilation of reflections from Jews around the world so that they could connect in isolation.
The result is an anthology titled “When We Turned Within: Reflections on COVID-19,” with all proceeds going to UJA-Federation New York’s COVID-19 relief fund. The anthology is available on Amazon.
“Whenever there’s been a point of heartbreak and a need for reflection within the Jewish and global community, Rabbi Creditor is so good at bringing people together around that,” Tuttle-Singer said. “Three weeks ago he reached out to me to ask if I would help be an extra pair of eyes on an anthology of a Jewish response and Jewish adjacent response to the COVID-19 crisis.”
The two crowdsourced Jews of all backgrounds and experiences to share how they have been navigating the pandemic, protests in response to the death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and quarantine. Within a week, Tuttle-Singer and Creditor “were flooded with such wonderful stories, poems, prayers [and] reflections of various Torah portions during that time,” Tuttle-Singer said. They received hundreds of submissions from Jews and non-Jews in the United States, Israel, Canada, the United Kingdom and Sweden.
Their mutual friend and artist, Rabbi Karen Byer Silberman, illustrated the cover, which displays a boat weathering a storm. Creditor said that very analogy is scattered throughout the book as contributors used the theme to describe this unprecedented period in history.
“It was a tumultuous week all around the world,” Creditor said noting the deaths of Floyd, Taylor and Arbery. “The submission time gave this incredible shift of language from many authors…to see a storm bringing together into one conversation so many different things we need to be healed from and we need to heal each other from. It was staggering to see the texture of these submissions.”
Creditor added that the contributions vary from comedic and lighthearted, to darker and mournful. Contributors also include rabbis, artists and journalists spanning religious and spiritual affiliation. Rabbi Dr. Bradley Shavit Artson, Rabbi Abby Stein, Ruth Messinger, Jessica Levine Kupferberg, Dahlia Lithwick, Rabbi Nicole Guzik, Mikhal Weiner, Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, Rabbi Daniel Bouskila and Journal Managing Editor Kelly Hartog are some of the authors featured in the anthology.
Creditor said, “This book is written by people who probably identify as Charedi… people who don’t identify as particularly religious, and different racial identities…every individual voice ended up showing a pattern of humanity that was so incredibly inspiring at the end I couldn’t have predicted it at the end.”
Tuttle-Singer noted that it is rare to see a book published about a part of history while that moment in history is still taking place. She said it offered an opportunity for in the moment responses to coping, rather than hindsight reflections. Creditor and Tuttle-Singer hope this book connects people who are still weathering their own storm of emotions.
“This is a special time capsule,” Tuttle-Singer said. “[Creditor] is so brilliant and really knows how to take a painful moment and catalyze it into something really inspiring and beautiful that also captures the spirit that so many of us are feeling. So when folks are feeling alone—I include myself in this; Part of what helped pull me out of a very dark place was reading all of these submissions— [read this, they realize] how connected we all are.”
“When We Turned Within: Reflections on COVID-19” can be found here. All proceeds support UJA-Federation New York’s coronavirus relief efforts.
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