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When I was asked to review this book, I was intrigued. I know many of the chapter authors, some professionally and some a bit more personally. I started it in the way that one would often read a book. From the beginning and methodically, but I became a bit stuck. Then I thought about how the majority of people contributing to the book are Jewish, and so I decided to read it from right to left (like you would do a prayer book written in Hebrew). Once again, I became somewhat paralysed.
Eventually I allowed myself to read the chapters as they called to me. Either because the title caught my attention, or because my curiosity about the writer invited my engagement; this worked much better.
Like all good books—particularly psychoanalytic ones—what the chapters invited me to do was to start engaging with my own suitcase. Specifically: who and what I carry around with me and why. How they help or hinder me and what items I would want to take with me if I had to make a quick getaway.
And unfortunately, in the current climate especially since the October 7th attacks and the surge of antisemitism that has been unleashed across the world, this is something that I do think about often. My suitcase and where I might go. However, I'm also confronted with the reality that perhaps there's no better home than the home I already have and that what we all need to do is make sure that our internal spaces create as much of a sense of peace and wellbeing as is possible in this polarised world that we share.
I'll start with a little bit of biographical information about me. On my father's side, I'm 2nd generation British. My grandparents left the Pale of Settlement (Ukraine and Poland) as a result of the pogroms of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Both my grandparents were born there.
Having recently seen the film The World Will Tremble, I feel much more empathy to the haunted look and burden that I remember my grandma carrying around with her. Clearly she was unable to process the huge losses