A glimmer of hope

Hello long-lost friend!

I’m excited I can start this after-an-extremely-long-absence newsletter with great news:

✨SYRIA IS FREE!✨

I’m writing this fast, because of course who knows what will happen next, and I just want to capture this one moment of rare and pure joy.

I loved all my trips to Syria, and I love virtually everyone I’ve ever met from and in Syria, and I feel so fortunate to enjoy, at least for a couple of days, the lifting of this tremendous and brutal weight that was the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

I happened to be up late on Saturday night when the news spread that Assad had gone, and it was a frenzied couple of hours of ♥♥♥ messages. My dentist friend who lives in Germany wrote, “For the first time in my life I can say I have a land and I can come back to my family.” I really, really hope that holds true.

There are many ways it could go wrong, from Israel keeping up its current incursions to sectarian infighting, which was Assad’s most cynically manipulated asset. (How cynical? After protests started in 2011, he released Islamic jihadists from prison, then said he was nobly fighting terrorists, to protect the religious and ethnic minorities of Syria.) I include this paragraph not to dampen the joy at all, but just to acknowledge what a lot of people are feeling alongside it. (Did I say pure joy above? I didn’t write fast enough.)

If you want to read more about Syria, I massively recommend We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled, a short but excellently crafted collection of interviews with Syrians, all woven together to tell the story of life under Assad rule, and the dynamics of the uprising in 2011, and how it soured into civil war. It’s by Wendy Pearlman, and I’ve probably mentioned it here before.

Wendy also recently published the “sequel,” The Home I Worked to Make, which are slightly longer interviews with Syrians who have settled in other parts of the world, and how they’ve managed. It’s moving and sometimes hilarious (one guy lies to his family that he’s in the Netherlands, so…then he has to get there), and has so many insights about home in general. And now it’s incredible to think that many of these people may have the opportunity to rebuild home in Syria again. (I hope Wendy does a third book!)

I was writing something about Gaza and Lebanon here, but honestly it’s long, and I was trying to be joyful, so I’ll save it for another letter. For now, I’ll just say I’m sorry I abandoned my post as a writer this past year. (Future letter topic: spreadsheets may be a better coping tool?)

If you want to donate, I have little more advice than gazafunds.com, a big list of vetted GoFundMes. I just throw a little money toward a new person every few days. If that’s too random (it can certainly feel that way), there’s UNRWA, which is not at all a terrorist organization, of course.

I have more respect than ever for the people who’ve been able to write through this, such as Lina Mounzer and Hala Alyan. I also recommend the Pulitzer Prize winner from earlier this year, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, by Nathan Thrall. Short, simply written, lays out with a single incident how the Israeli occupation harms everyone in even the most basic ways. And look out for the documentary No Other Land, which isn’t in wide distribution, but you might be able to catch at a festival?

One highlight this summer was finally meeting an Afghan man, AS, whose visa I sponsored back in late 2021 after I was connected to him through CBST, a synagogue in Manhattan that runs a law clinic especially for queer asylum seekers. The whole story of AS’s visa application is mostly messages to bureaucrats (other bits: occasional agonizing danger).

Skip to: He got his visa and arrived in August. Later, we went to CBST together, and the delightful rabbi hugged him and said, “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have baked a cake.” (Only an accidental song reference, I think?)

So now America has another massively skilled and educated immigrant looking for work. AS is a cardiologist, speaks great English, is well traveled. He’s looking for…anything to do while he takes the long road to medical recertification. For example, he applied to a caseworker job with the International Rescue Committee. If you have any other ideas, send them my way.

There will finally be an audiobook of All Strangers Are Kin! I’m working with an excellent narrator, Julia Farhat, who really gets the book. It should be in distribution sometime in January. It would help immensely if, when the time comes, you can request it from your library. More on this in a future letter, but you can prep by downloading the Libby app if your library uses it — and practicing the process by requesting the Kindle version of ASAK!

The news in Syria also makes me think of dusting off my novel featuring a truly charming Syrian refugee. My agent and I have parted ways — so if you have suggestions for a new one (or if you are one), I’d love to hear from you.

Still only one foot in the pool here on Substack — I’m almost feeling like I should just go back to blogging?! Anyway, a concern for a later date, and I’ll let you know.

Meanwhile, I’m glad to be back in touch, and let’s all look forward to a new year and a new Syria.

With love,

Zora