When I write a book, I often don’t know what it’s about. I’m comfortable with this, because I learned years ago that authors don’t control their output. They are immersed in their personal and historical contexts: how could they understand their own work? Once my book is really finished, I stop being the author: I become the reader. At this point, I might start to put two and two together.

Today, I realized that my book has a big theme I’d been unaware of: the Robin Hood critique of corruption.

In 1843, Monos Leites, a leader in the town of Mstislavl (also called Amchitslav), along with peers, stood up against the regional governor’s persecution. Together, these righteous elders incurred punishment from Tsar Nicholas for their alleged “Mstislavl Rebellion,” first by having their Orthodox hair and beards shaved into a checkerboard pattern, then by getting thrown into prison. Further, Nicholas decreed that one in ten male Mstislavl Jews aged twelve to sixty would be conscripted into the army.

Who wants to acknowledge—let alone teach—that Holocausts lead to Nakbas; that oppressed Jews turn around and become oppressors of Palestinians?

Haman’s desire [in the book of Esther] to completely eradicate the Jews of Persia—man, woman, and child—mimics the actions of Iran and its proxies, specifically Hamas…. These are the fingerprints, the modus operandi of Amalek, our arch-enemy throughout the ages. They carry within them the bloodlust for Jewish destruction; their DNA extends from Haman to Chmielnicki to Torquemada to the Nazis. They cannot be bribed or bought off, pacified or persuaded; they must be confronted and conquered if we are to survive.

—Stewart Weiss, Jerusalem Post, March 3, 2026

“A book creates a community of readers. Every reading is different, and different readers utilize that same text to talk with each other, learn about themselves, and engage in personal transformation. Books have the power to influence a society’s worldview. As eras pass, people read the same book in light of today’s news and interpret it afresh. In the presence of a stable text: readers themselves change over time.”