Words that heal and hold

When Yishay Ishi Ron experienced a total psychological collapse in 2022, writing was the only thing he could still do.

When Ayelet Tsabari sat down to write her novel, she was chasing characters she had spent a lifetime waiting to see on the page. Both found their way to books that have resonated far beyond anything they expected, and next month they will bring those stories to Australia.

The two authors will appear at Melbourne Jewish Book Week on August 2, with Tsabari in conversation with Lee Kofman and Ishi Ron with Ben Lindner. The following evening they join forces on stage with Michaela Kalowski at the Shalom Collective Australian Jewish Writer Awards in Sydney, an evening that will also announce winners across five categories of Australian Jewish writing.

Ishi Ron’s debut novel Dog, which received two US National Jewish Book Awards and is now being adapted into a film, draws on his experience of severe PTSD after serving in an elite combat unit. It took years before he understood what he had been carrying.

“I had lived for years with anxiety, panic attacks, nightmares, and other symptoms without fully understanding that they were all manifestations of PTSD from my military service,” Ishi Ron told The AJN. “My therapists knew I was a novelist, and they encouraged me to use writing as part of my healing process. Looking back, Dog was never intended to be therapy, but writing it allowed me to confront emotions and memories I had spent years trying to suppress.”

Tsabari’s Songs for the Brokenhearted came from a different kind of absence, but one just as personal. She grew up in Israel never seeing Yemeni characters in the books she read, and the novel became her way of changing that, weaving Yemeni women’s song traditions with the deep, unresolved wound of the Yemenite, Mizrahi and Balkan Children Affair.

“I’ve had Yemeni readers writing to me, telling me I wrote their life story,” Tsabari said. “I’ve had readers at events coming to me in tears because they’ve felt seen for the first time. It’s honestly everything I was hoping for. It makes me emotional even talking about it.”

She wrote from multiple points of view across generations to show how intergenerational trauma ripples through time, and to protect herself from the weight of the material. With the Hebrew edition now on the way, she hopes even more Yemeni readers will find themselves in its pages.

“My writing is so heavily inspired by my community, so it is gratifying to be able to give back.”

What both authors share is the discovery that their books have taken on lives they never planned for.

Hundreds of readers have written to Ishi Ron since Dog was published. Some were veterans struggling with PTSD themselves. Others bought the book for a spouse, a parent or a child they hoped it would help them better understand. Therapists have told him they now use the novel in their clinical work.

“Knowing that a novel I wrote has become a therapeutic tool is one of the greatest privileges I could ever imagine as a writer,” he said. With more than 20,000 Israeli soldiers wounded since October 2023, many developing PTSD, he believes literature has a real role to play.

“If literature can help someone feel less alone, or help a family understand what their loved one is experiencing, then it has already achieved something far greater than simply telling a story.”

Ishi Ron arrives with a second novel in English, The Girl Who Rode the White Lion, translated by Yardenne Greenspan, inspired by the true account of Adolf and Maria Althoff, owners of a travelling German circus who hid Jewish performers from the Nazis.

“When I first discovered this remarkable story, I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” he said. “It reminded me that even in humanity’s darkest moments, there are people who choose extraordinary courage over fear.”

Tsabari is open about the challenges Israeli authors face since October 7, with festival invitations and translation opportunities drying up.

“The climate and the current situation makes it hard for me to find words, which naturally makes writing harder,” she said. “But it’s also important to keep things in perspective. Some people lost everything.”

Ishi Ron is looking forward to one thing that writers rarely get. Human connection.

“Writing is a solitary profession, so finally meeting the people who have spent hours inside your stories is incredibly meaningful.”

Melbourne Jewish Book Week is from August 1-4. For tickets and more information, visit mjbw.com.au

Sydney Jewish Writers Festival is running from 2-30 August. For tickets and more information, visit shalomcollective.com.au/programs/sydney-jewish-writers-festival