If ever you wondered if you can make a friend online, Ilana-Davita is a true friend. I love visiting her little town in France by visiting her blog, where she shares her thoughts on Judaism, her tales of Europe, her photos, cooking and warmth. I am honored to have her answers to my writing interview.
Books, photograph by Ilana-Davita
1) When did you realize that you like to write?
I realized that I liked to write when I started reading whole books. At the time, I also began to write stories that nobody read, except my parents maybe, in a small school notebook.
I was eager to write at school and, at age nine, even asked the teacher when we would start writing short narrative essays (the French term for this school subject is “rédaction”). She acquiesced but obviously was not too happy with what we wrote since she never gave us another writing assignment.
Obviously I then spent years writing essays of all sorts but not always with pleasure. Since I started blogging, however, the pleasure has returned. My blog began as a sort of experiment: I was not quite sure I was doing it and what I was going to write about but it seemed like something I might enjoy. It has brought me more satisfaction and enjoyment that I had anticipated even if writing is a bit tough at the moment.
2) When did you realize that you like to read?
When I turned seven our next door neighbor gave me a Noddy book by Enid Blyton. I was a little awed at the perspective of reading a whole real book by myself but the experience was awesome and I have not stopped reading since.
3) Which authors influenced you in your youth? Which authors or writers influence you now? (influence of style or in life choices or both)
My first influence was Enid Blyton. A year or two after Noddy, I discovered The Secret Seven and above all The Famous Five. I found these series wonderful and read 13 out of the 15 Secret Seven books, all of The Famous Five stories and a lot of other novels she had written. At that time my dream was to become the new Enid Blyton. She has been much criticized for her lack of literary talent but this did not matter to me as a child. I had found an activity I adored, this was enough.
During my adolescence I read extensively but can’t remember being influenced by one author in particular.
After high school graduation, I spent a year in England and discovered English (and American) literature. I then went to college in France where I studied English (language, literature and civilization). I read the Brontes, which I loved, George Eliot and Thomas Hardy. My favorite however was Jane Austen. I thus read Pride and Prejudice overnight. I liked her style and her wit. I still do. Her fine dialogues have few equals in English literature.
At present one of my favorite novelists is Chaim Potok and, as some of my regular readers may know, I have named my blog after one of his characters. I love how he conveys his love of Judaism while presenting his readers with some of the issues observant Jews are confronted with. His characters experience religious dilemmas but, in the end, manage to remain faithful Jews in a manner I find honest and coherent.
As far as life choices are concerned, my main influence is Rabbi Joseph Telushkin and his emphasis on Jewish ethics. To anyone intersted in what he has written on the subject I’d recommend first: The Book of Jewish Values and then A Code of Jewish Ethics, volumes 1 and 2. I also find Rabbi Jonathan Sacks inspiring.
4) Have you ever taken a creative writing course?
No, this existed neither when I was at school nor at college. Unfortunately French education encourages formal learning rather than creativity.
5) Have you ever studied journalism?
No, there again I wished I had. Interestingly enough, my mom studied journalism but never practiced her trade.
6) Do you find writing or talking an easier way to express yourself, or are both writing and talking similar vehicles of self-expression for you?
I suppose it depends on the circumstances and what I have to say. I find talking easy in a meeting when the topics discussed are professional rather than personal. When the issue is closer to home I find it harder and would never share with my colleagues or even acquaintance the thoughts and ideas I share on my blog. Things are of course a bit different with the people that are very close.
7) Have you written short stories or poetry (or would you like to do so)?
Apart from the little stories I wrote when I was 8 or 9 and a few poems when I was in my early twenties, I have not written anything creative. I have some regrets but also believe I am better at expressing thoughts than emotions.
I call this day heaven and earth as my witness: See, I set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Now, choose life so that you and your children may live. -Deuteronomy 30:19 (in memory of RivkA, z”l)
Robin of Around the Island will be posting the upcoming JPIX (Jewish Photo Bloggers Blog Carnival) on November 14. Please send in your JPIX submissions by November 11.
Robin wrote on a recent post in memory of RivkA, z”l (may her blessing be a memory): ‘One of the things RivkA used to say that always made me smile was how even though she wasn’t “a photography person” she loved looking at my photography.’ To learn more about RivkA, who died last week after a long battle with breast cancer, visit her blog Coffee and Chemo.
It is fun to watch and photograph the wandering peacocks at the Philadelphia Zoo. The sad part is they eat the fast food (fried chicken, french fries) that people leave behind on the ground. I can’t imagine this is very healthy for the peacocks.
Red Leaves in East Brunswick, New Jersey
We visited the Butterfly Park in East Brunswick last Sunday. I was planning to post a Nature Notes about the park (didn’t happen! not enough hours or energy in a week); instead, I have material for next week’s Nature Notes.
Elsewhere in the Blogosphere
Jew Wishes reviewed Irretrievably Broken by Irma Fritz, saying “Fritz has woven a tapestry that is profound and compelling within the pages of Irretrievably Broken.” She also has a post with photos by Irma Fritz of Wernher von Braun’s lab at Peenemunde (links no longer exist).
Funeral plans are in the process, and we’ll post them as soon as we know.
May RivkA’s family be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.”
One more update, a parsha thought on Hayye Sarah by Jeffrey Woolf: “Abraham came to Hevron to eulogize Sarah and to cry for her. The Rav זצ”ל used to emphasize that ordinarily the order is the reverse. First once cries. Only after time passes and perspective returns, can one eulogize the departed and evaluate who they were.
Sometimes, though, one is obligated to suppress one’s primal shriek of pain in order to tell the world just who the person was who has gone. That way, the Rav said, we try to involve as many people as possible in mourning the tragedy. Once the eulogy is achieved, we may all let ourselves go and cry out in pain.”
Rutgers New Jersey Jewish Film Festival 2010 featuring Father's Footsteps
It’s Rutgers New Jersey Jewish Film Festival time, and since most of you reading this post don’t live in New Jersey, I thought we could have a little fun with a “Guess the Film” game.
Without looking beyond the main film page, can you guess which three films are already sold out? The films are listed in the left sidebar (click on the large graphic above to get to the main film page). No cheating.
Can you name the film that my husband and I plan to attend?
Finally, if you did live in New Jersey, which films would you want to see? Answers to the second question (which film are my husband and I attending) will be posted early next week.
Second in my series of interviews with bloggers on writing (see interview with Lorri of Jew Wishes), Shimshonit kindly responded to my questions with revealing and thoughtful answers. Shimshonit lives in Israel and blogs about family life, Israeli politics, books, Jewish topics, food (I think every Jew must blog about food – no?). She used to live in my childhood home town of Newton (she said we met once, but I don’t remember the meeting, which doesn’t mean it didn’t happen – but neither of us were bloggers at the time; blogging didn’t exist yet).
1) When did you realize that you like to write?
I’ve loved writing ever since I learned to write. Even as a child, I used to write letters to friends and relatives. Writing has been almost as big an obsession for me as reading. In high school, when I was learning to write expository essays, I found it incredibly frustrating to have my writing picked apart and critiqued by very hard teachers. But I emerged in the end a much more confident writer, more aware of grammar, of words, of voice.
2) When did you realize that you like to read?
Again, when I first learned to read. I’ve always loved stories, and to be able to read them myself gave me an independence from relying on others to tell them to me.
3) Which authors influenced you in your youth? Which authors or writers influence you now? (influence of style or in life choices or both)
I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder’s stories of her pioneer family. Her family’s courage, self-sufficiency, warmth and love appealed to me. In junior high school I discovered J.R.R. Tolkien, whose love of poetry and epic storytelling fed my love of adventure, languages, and travel, and spoke to my Anglo-Saxon soul. It was Tolkien who, in one of his very few women characters, gave me Éowyn, perhaps my favorite character of all time, whose restlessness and rebellion led to one of the pivotal acts which saved the people of her world from destruction. (Photo at right is Miranda Otto as Éowyn in the Peter Jackson films).
As an adult, I’ve always admired Charles Dickens for his quirky characters and brutal honesty about the good and bad in people. I think Great Expectations may be my favorite novel of all time. My second favorite is probably a tie between George Eliot’s sweeping, intelligent, sensitive Middlemarch and Jane Austen’s quieter, subtler novel Persuasion. For a little humor, I love Pride and Prejudice and anything by P.G. Wodehouse. I could go on forever, but I’ll spare you.
4) Have you ever taken a creative writing course?
I took a year-long college course on the American short story in my early 20s, reading the likes of Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Gardner, studying their craft carefully, writing my own stories, and working with the rest of the class as a critique group. We continued on our own for three years after that class. It was marvelous. While I don’t write fiction nowadays, that experience has given a distinctive flavor to my nonfiction writing, and has given me much sharper skills as a reader besides.
5) Have you ever studied journalism?
No.
6) Do you find writing or talking an easier way to express yourself, or are both writing and talking similar vehicles of self-expression for you?
I prefer writing to talking. I don’t think at all well on my feet. I like writing for the opportunity to compose and edit my words carefully, and avoid saying anything I don’t mean or might regret later. I also like writing because it allows me to think on paper (or, more accurately these days, on screen). I’ve heard it said that you know what you think about something once you’ve written about it. I share that sentiment.
7) Have you written short stories or poetry (or would you like to do so)?
Yes, but nothing I would care to show anyone now. Disappointment (in employment, in love) make for great poetic inspiration, but very dull reading. And I don’t think I was a very good fiction writer. I write nonfiction when I’m content, and that’s what I’ve been writing for a long time now.
Please add a favorite quote.
The last lines of Middlemarch, which often make me think of my own life:
Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
I enjoyed these thought-provoking questions. Thank you!
If you enjoyed this interview, you may also enjoy:
My daughter and her friend enjoyed their ride on the Philadelphia Zoo carousel last week.
I imagine this parrot is saying “Awk! I am a handsome dude, aren’t I? Awk!”
There is so much to see at the Philly Zoo that we only saw about half the place when we heard it was closing time. The girls really enjoyed the petting zoo and the big cats (pumas, leopards, lions).
For more posts with a lot or a little red, visit:
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I am running a new series interviewing bloggers who like to write about writing. The first one was an interview with Lorri of Jew Wishes. Please come back tomorrow and next week for the next two in this series. Thank you.
Sometimes you can photograph an ordinary bridge and get some good shots. This bridge goes over the Raritan River, and on top is Route 18, a busy thoroughfare that takes you from New Brunswick, through East Brunswick, and eventually leads down to the Jersey Shore area.
This is the top of the bridge. I liked the colorful leaves growing on the fence.
Unfortunately, graffiti is too common a site on bridges in our area.
The bottom of the bridge with the Raritan River: the bridge is at the end of our walk that started at Rutgers Gardens.
Robin of Around the Island will be posting the upcoming JPIX (Jewish Photo Bloggers Blog Carnival) on November 14. Please 
