Those interested in literature by Jewish authors can attend the 43rd Annual St. Louis Jewish Book Fest virtually or in person at the Jewish Community Center’s Staenberg Family Complex in Creve Coeur.
“I think its good for the Jewish community and the Black community to know that there are those of us who fall into both categories,” she said. “There’s a lot more Black Jews in the United States and certainly around the world than people are aware.”
Monique Faison Ross, author of “Playing Dead: A Memoir of Terror and Survival,” and Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, author of “The Discovered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, & Dreams Deferred,” are the only Black Jewish writers featured this year.
Faison Ross’ book “Playing Dead” details how the marriage to her high school sweetheart became a horrific nightmare resulting in domestic violence, abuse, endless stalking, and a traumatizing near-death experience.
In the book, she wrote the relationship became so toxic she moved her and their three kids from the house. She thought that was the right move to make for her and her children’s safety until her husband Chris kidnapped her in front of their kids one morning. She wrote he took her to the woods, raped her, beat her mercilessly in the head with a shovel, and left her body in the woods, assuming she was dead. She wasn’t; she played dead to get out alive.
Eventually, she and the kids were able to escape from Chris. They divorced, and she and the kids relocated from Florida to Connecticut to start a new life.
Ross said she never dreamed of writing a book, but her support system and friends she gained with the new move motivated her to tell her story.
“They didn’t let it die and said you really have to do this,” she said. “I tried writing it for several years by myself, and then Gary Krebs and I connected. He became my writer while I was the author, and we worked together for about ten months.”
When she first told Krebs about the different situations she experienced in her and Chris’ marriage, she said she was vague about it. She recounted the story as if it were a police report, but she said he pushed her vulnerability. She said he asked her how those things made her feel and probed her to be more open about how she felt in those moments.
“When I was being stalked, it’s like you can’t catch your breath in the writing of it,” she said. “That’s exactly how it felt. It was three months of stalking, and I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath. There’s no moment where you can relax when you’re being stalked 24 hours a day.”
She said she had misconceptions about what domestic violence or abuse looked like. She said she always assumed it meant black eyes, broken bones, hiding from friends and family, being isolated from friends and family.
“Certainly, in that moment when I was kidnapped, I was with him for about six hours that I spent trying to get him to turn himself into the police,” she said. “I didn’t realize the grave danger I was in until that very moment he grabbed that shovel. I just hope that my story can enlighten and educate people about domestic violence.”
She said it’s good for others to know, especially Black Jews, there are Black Jewish authors.
“I think it’s good for the Jewish community and the Black community to know that there are those of us who fall into both categories,” she said. “There’s a lot more Black Jews in the United States and certainly around the world than people are aware.”
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s book “The Disordered Cosmos” was inspired by a collection of essays she wrote addressing how race, gender, and bias shape how science is done, specifically in physics and astronomy. She said the book transformed into what she always dreamed of doing as a teenager, which was to write a book about particle physics and astronomy for her community.
“My point of view of the book is a holistic look at the doing of particle physics, the doing of astronomy, not just through the lens of what are the things we’re calculating, what are the ideas that we’re working through on a technical level, but how it works as a cultur[al] and a social phenomenon,” she said.
One of Prescod-Weinstein’s themes for her book is the idea of a fundamental human right to the night sky. She said it comes from her mother, Margaret Prescod, a Black feminist with experience in organizing, who said people need to know there’s a universe beyond the bad things happening. After the murder of George Floyd, she felt the necessity of the human right to the night sky more deeply than ever.
“I realized there’s a whole night sky out there that most of us, especially those of us who grew up in urban environments, were not experiencing what the night sky would’ve looked like to our ancestors,” she said. “That means we’re missing a piece of our ancestral heritage.”
Prescod-Weinstein said she thinks many people have been made to feel that they weren’t good at math, physics, and science growing up. She said that can make them think it’s not worth it to pick up a book like hers because they don’t have information memorized.
“I want to encourage people to feel more confident in their ability to understand things and to feel more entitled in their right to casually enjoy science writing,” she said. “Experience the universe as an inspiration for why we fight so that there’s a generation that can just have these joyous experiences of thinking about how cool the universe is.”
Ross’ author talk will be in person Tuesday, Nov. 16 at 1 p.m. and costs $20 to attend.
Prescod-Weinstein’s author talk is virtual Thursday, Nov. 18 at 1 p.m and costs $10 to attend.
For more information about the St. Louis Jewish Book Fest, visit its website at https://jccstl.com/festival-events-schedule/.
