NCS anchor Bianna Golodryga takes on antisemitism in new YA book

Bianna Golodryga, a information anchor for NCS International, immigrated to the U.S. from the previous Soviet Union in 1980 together with her household to flee antisemitism.

Now a father or mother of two kids, the onetime political refugee finds herself having to elucidate the hatred expressed towards Jewish folks in the nation she loves — a lot of it expressed in the swampy waters of social media. She sees them dwelling with the strain between taking a stand in opposition to it and getting alongside.

“When you come to a country, you’re the minority, and all you want to do is fit in,” Golodryga says.

The veteran journalist who co-hosts “One World” on NCS International and her buddy Yonit Levi, a number one anchor for N12 News in Israel, wished to supply their preteen offspring a highway map to cope with the difficulty. They delivered it in their co-authored younger grownup novel “Don’t Feed the Lion.”

The book, aimed toward ages 9 and up, is centered round Theo Kaplan, a soccer-obsessed Chicago middle-school scholar whose world is rocked when his favourite footballer makes an antisemitic comment a couple of crew proprietor. The hate hits nearer to dwelling when a swastika and antisemitic hashtag is scrawled on Theo’s athletic room locker — main his youthful sister to imagine a secret on-line identification to get justice.

Golodryga not too long ago spoke to The Times about “Don’t Feed the Lion.”

Bianna Golodryga interviews hostage Andrey Kozlov in Israel.

(NCS)

The central plot level in this book is knowledgeable by life expertise. Your son took it onerous when NBA star Kyrie Irving touted a documentary film with antisemitic tropes on social media. Irving was suspended by his crew earlier than he apologized for it.

My son is an enormous sports activities fan. He’s requested me point-blank, “Why do they hate us? Can I not go to basketball games anymore?” I bear in mind the place we had been on the Brooklyn Bridge going to a Brooklyn Nets sport and he requested this and I didn’t have reply. I figured I’d simply attain out to their faculty and see what they’re doing about antisemitism since they’ve invested a lot into different types of hate training. I got here to search out out they didn’t have something. It was mainly, “Well, when they ask a question, we discuss it at school sometimes.” And so that basically caught with me, that there weren’t assets for teenagers on antisemitism.

Did the Hamas assault on Israel that led to the conflict in Gaza speed up the necessity for such a book?

Yonit and I’ve identified one another for a few years, and we sadly predicted that after once more, we’d see an enormous spike in antisemitism. Her youngsters are across the similar age. She spent a lot of her adolescence right here and she or he’s very accustomed to the U.S. And I stated, “Let’s write the book that we can’t find, because this is bound to be an issue in the weeks and months to come.” It’s not the panacea, however at the very least there might be some useful resource that’s story too, for Jewish youngsters, non-Jewish youngsters and the adults in their lives.

(Arcadia Children’s Books)

After your most important character Theo sees the swastika and hashtag on his locker, the response from his faculty was fairly tepid. Are faculties not taking this situation severely sufficient?

That’s a part of the issue. We’ve allowed this to fester. Other types of hate have been addressed head-on. Whether it’s a swastika right here or there or a social media submit, or a press release or a remark, whether or not from the precise or from the left — it’s kind of handled as remoted incidents and never with the extent of alarm that I’d say different types of hate or feedback directed at different minorities could be. And once more, that is private expertise from different relations courting again 5, 10 years in the past the place there have been swastikas at college, and the response was, “Let’s have a kumbaya session and talk about why this isn’t a good thing and why we shouldn’t allow this.” I’ve skilled this as a Jewish American.

How sophisticated has this dialogue grow to be in mild of the way in which public sentiment has turned in opposition to the Israelis over the way in which they dealt with the conflict in Gaza?

I feel that’s one of many the reason why nobody’s actually wished to the touch this situation for this age group as a result of they conflate it with the Middle East. This is clearly the longest, deadliest, most painful conflict stemming from the horrific assaults of Oct. 7 that we’ve lined. But we see each time there’s an infraction, skirmishes or short-term conflict there’s a spike in antisemitism world wide. … There’s no different nation the place I’d quite be a Jew than in the United States. But there isn’t a time the place I don’t bear in mind rising up, whether or not in Texas or in New York now, the place there hasn’t been an armed guard or two or three, or a bomb menace issued, at a spot of worship, a synagogue, a Jewish establishment, and that’s been normalized. I imply, now I don’t really feel comfy going right into a Jewish establishment with out safety. And once more, this predates Oct. 7.

Bianna Golodryga, heart, with Malki Shem Tov, left, and hostage Omer Shem Tov throughout her interview with Omer.

(NCS)

Was it troublesome to promote this book?

We began bringing it to the eye of publishers about two or three months after Oct. 7, so finish of December ’23 and early January ’24. And I’ll say, I used to be a bit stunned that we couldn’t get many individuals to chew. We’ve by no means written a book and we had been informed — and I take this at their phrase —that this can be a very troublesome age group to write down for and market to in common, which is in and of itself an issue, as a result of as we famous, they’re very sensible, inquisitive, and so they want supplies. They shouldn’t be talked all the way down to. We didn’t wish to write a didactic book. Then we might hear six months to a yr later that now will not be the precise time to write down a book on antisemitism. Maybe give it a yr or two and we’ll see. It appeared to us the is the precise time to write down a book. We simply received to the purpose the place we stated let’s simply self-publish, if that’s what it’s gonna take.

How did you finally discover a writer?

Luckily, Yonit and I weren’t shy about telling everybody we knew about this venture. One evening I used to be seated at a dinner for the Metropolitan Museum of Art subsequent to Michael Lynton, who’s a former Sony Entertainment head and now chairman of Snap. And I informed him about this book, and he stated, “I’ll publish it.” He and his sister run Arcadia, which publishes regional kids’s books. He stated this isn’t usually the kind of book we publish. But I feel he actually believed in the thought, and so we’re very grateful.

There are some similarities between your 13-year-old son and Theo. When he learn the book, was he involved it may be too revealing?

No. It’s humorous as a result of I feel he really loved the storylines and the plot. Sadly, I feel his most important concern now could be that is simply the fact we reside in. He’s simply apprehensive about safety and pushback and never wanting to attract an excessive amount of consideration to me or the household. I feel that’s kind of a typical response you get from youngsters. He’s really grow to be a lot nearer to his Judaism and his heritage. And he had his bar mitzvah in Israel final yr. He’s wished to go to synagogue extra and he’s actually taken a deep dive into his tradition, which we’re very happy with.