Willie Handler's Blog

I will continue to update by website but my blog has been moved to Substack. A much better platform for writers. Subscribers have been moved.

My Substack account is HERE!

Since last October 7, I have never seen so many Swastikas around Toronto, They are on bus shelters, on hostage posters, on university campuses, on Jewish business and organizations, at pro-Palestinian rallies, and scrawled on sidewalks in Jewish neighbourhoods. You can’t avoid them. There has been a 670% increase in antisemitic incidents in the past year according to the Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism. You rarely saw Jew-hate out in the open but now it’s everywhere.

Canadian Jews are experiencing open hatred. As for our government, it appears either blind to the hate, paralyzed by it, or indifferent. Why aren’t police doing more to enforce laws? It’s because they aren’t getting support from politicians.

Maybe the best example occurred on November 20. On that day in Montreal, at the annual session of the NATO parliamentary assembly, rioters organized by the organizations Divest for Palestine and the Convergence of Anti-Capitalist Struggles literally rioted. They ignited smoke bombs, threw metal barriers into the street, and smashed windows of businesses and the convention center where the NATO delegates were meeting. The rioters torched cars. While Montreal burned, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was dancing at a Taylor Swift concert in Toronto. The next day he issued a single short tweet condemning the violent rally. This is a typical response from our PM, a few words and no action.

October 7 hit Canadian Jews hard as was the case elsewhere. But we never expected what occurred on October 8 and afterwards. Palestinian supporters were celebrating an attack in which children were murdered, women were brutally raped, bodies were burned and mutilated, and hostages were taken. These types of public displays have not subsided after 14 months.

Canadian Jews feel unsafe and under attack. Most believe the situation will not improve. I’m still hearing people suggesting the community is over-reacting. Since last October 7, there have been several drive-by shootings at Jewish schools in Montreal and Toronto. A coordinated bomb threat targeted more than 100 Jewish institutions from coast to coast. Synagogues in British Columbia and Quebec have been firebombed. One synagogue in Toronto, Kehillat Shaarei Torah, has been vandalized seven times. Jewish businesses across the country are routinely vandalized. Jews are face “pro-Palestinian protesters” in their own neighborhoods. Jewish university students are afraid to attend classes.

For too long we have been complacent about Jew-hate. The first “Israeli Apartheid Week” was organized in Toronto 20 years ago, an annual event that is now held in over 60 cities. When Palestinian organizations launched the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions strategy in 2005, the BDS movement had existed in Toronto for three years.

I reported this news story several weeks ago and I received comments blaming Jews (where have I heard that before). On November 24, Rabbi Adam Scheier and his daughters were shopping in downtown Montreal. While inside a cafe, they heard sounds of an anti-Israel protest. Scheier, who was wearing his kippah, grabbed his phone to document the event. But within moments, a police officer singled him out and asked him to move. His mere presence as a visible Jew was perceived as provocative. It is shocking to be told that police can not or will not protect Jews from violent mobs. Either one is unacceptable.

Almost none of these verbal or physical assaults are coming from white supremacists or antisemites on the right. They are being carried out by self-described progressives, Arabs, and recent immigrants who believe in ideology that until recently was foreign to Canada. This ideology declares Canada, United States and Israel as colonists and illegitimate states. It’s an ideology that has found a comfortable home in Trudeau’s Canada.

From the outset, Trudeau’s immigration policy set out to welcome unprecedented numbers of immigrants, temporary workers, and foreign students. Meanwhile, Muslim advocacy organizations quickly rose to unprecedented influence in Trudeau’s Canada. Many believe there should not be a Jewish state. They disguise their antisemitism by describing it as anti-Zionism. Many new Canadians come from countries where Jews have been driven out or killed.

How bad is it? According to the Toronto Police Service, of all the hate crimes since October 7 that involved religion, 80 percent involved an “anti-Jewish occurrence.” There are only about 120,000 Jews among the roughly three million people who live in Toronto. It’s similar in Montreal, Ottawa, and Vancouver.

On September 4, as part of a complex cross-border investigation, a 20-year-old foreign student from Pakistan was arrested in Ormstown, Quebec. He was trying to enter the U.S. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, was headed to New York to carry out a mass slaughter of Jews on behalf of ISIS to coincide with the October 7 massacres in Israel. While he was planning his attack, Khan was also applying for refugee status. This is the Canada I live on.

Throughout my life, people considered me to be a regular white male with an ethnic background and a sense of humour, indistinguishable from many Canadian men. But I have always felt different. Very different.

I’m a child of Holocaust survivors. I had traumatized parents who were left stateless and penniless after the WWII. With almost no extended family, I live in a world filled with ghosts. In fact I live in two worlds – in present day Canada and sometimes I’m back in the Holocaust.

Travelling between these two worlds is like going from day to night, from summer to winter, from freedom to prison. Too often it leaves me feeling adrift. I never spoke to anyone about how I felt. I held it inside but over time I realized that other children of Holocaust survivors felt the same way.

How are we different? We are higher risk for experiencing depression, anxiety and PTSD through exposure to our traumatized parents. We have few or no role models as many of us have no grandparents, aunts or uncles. This leads to rocky relationships with siblings and estrangement. We have a strange connection with family history. It’s typically unknown which creates a strong need to establish a family legacy. Many children write their parents’ or their own memoir.

We are often hypersensitive to threats duplicating our parents’ fight, flight, freeze and fawn responses. Not surprising we respond strongly to antisemitism and often are ready to fight back for fear of making the same mistakes as European Jewry during the 1930s. We are also much more susceptible to stressful events

We tend to be less materialistic because we know how easily property and possessions can be taken away from us. We are very protective of our parents who went through life changing experiences. Very often the roles are reversed even at very young ages.

The world feels like a very dangerous place. There are perceived threats everywhere. As a result, there is a strong attachment to Israel. Israel is considered a lifeline in the event our home country becomes too dangerous. We know very well that when the persecution of Jews began in 1933, there were no safe havens. Consequently we will not publicly criticize the Israeli government even when we disagree with it.

f you are reading this, you’ve got through another year. And what a year it’s been for me. Some lows but lots of highs.

In February I signed a publishing contract with Amsterdam Publishers for my memoir Out From the Shadows.

In March, I began interviewing descendants of Holocaust survivors for my next book project on intergenerational trauma. Those interviews wrapped in October following an exhausting 97 interviews.

Holocaust Remembrance Day took place in May. I was invited to speak at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and Temple Har Zion. I also mentally crashed and decided to take the month of June off.

In July, although unpublished, Out From the Shadows was runner up for the best memoir at the New York Book Festival.

In August, I spent several days in Washington DC and had the opportunity to visit the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. It turned out to be much more difficult than my first visit in 1998.

The World Federation of Jewish Holocaust Survivors & Descendants held their annual conference in Toronto in September and I had the opportunity to attend. I met numerous people I had interviewed in previous months as well as make some new contacts. I signed a contract to be represented by Bonnie Swanson of FinePrint Literary Management for my next book, The Hidden Victims.

In October, I had my first podcast interviews to promote my books. I’ve now completed 9 interviews with another 8 scheduled. This is a link to my MEDIA page on my website where all the interviews can be found.

November was Holocaust Education Week in Toronto and I was invited to speak at Beth Torah synagogue. But the big event in November was the release of Out From the Shadows. The launch was a huge success with about 80 attendees.

At the end of 2024 my memoir has been well received and spent 10 weeks as Amazon’s top new Holocaust memoir. The success of this book has been well beyond my expectations. It is now in the libraries in Holocaust museums in Toronto, Washington DC, and Vancouver.

Subscribed

What are some of my plans for 2025?

1. I’m planning an online workshop on memoir writing.
2. I hope to complete a first draft of The Hidden Victims by the end of the summer. I’ve already written 8,000 words.
3. I’m hoping that my agent can find a publisher for The Hidden Victims.
4. I’m pursuing opportunities to make a documentary out of The Hidden Victims.
5. I’m going to South Africa.

Finally, I want to wish everyone a safe, health and prosperous 2025.

At a young age, I learned that I would have to be my own advocate. This was definitely the case when it came to school. My parents did not speak very good English when I was in elementary school. As well, they were intimidated by authority figures so the idea of meeting with a principal most likely created a lot of anxiety.

As I point out in my memoir, OUT FROM THE SHADOWS at a young age I would write notes to the teacher for my mom. Then one year, I submitted my mom’s forged signature to the school office. I signed my own notes and report cards and my parents were totally out of the loop.

One year I decided I didn’t want to sing Christmas songs in class. I don’t remember my age but I was still in elementary school. I don’t know why I decided to take this stand. It didn’t feel right to me. Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star is one thing but carols like Away in a Manger mentioned baby Jesus. As a child of Holocaust survivors, I already felt different that everyone else.

This was before diversity and inclusion were buzz words in Toronto’s public school system. Back then, Christmas was everywhere in the school. There were trees and decorations, and the school held a Christmas concert (not a winter holiday concert) before the winter break. You practiced the songs the class was going to sing in the classroom. Now back then I was a shy and introverted child. The fact that I refused to go along was a strong indication of how strongly I felt about it.

This must have caused a dilemma for my teacher but she accepted it. I did not have to sit in class while the other students sang their Christmas songs. Instead I sat in the library. When the day of the concert arrived, I sat in the audience with family members. My parents didn’t attend because they worked. And all was forgotten for a year. I learned that the next Christmas concert would include one Hannukah song. I didn’t make a fuss that next year. The class practiced the songs for the concert and I sat in class but didn’t sing except for the one song Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel.

The environment in the school system has changed a lot in 60 years. With diversity and inclusion, Christmas rarely is allowed to make an appearance. But at the same time, there is also a growing animosity towards Jews. I wonder how a young Willie would handle today’s environment.

On July 19, 2023, I signed a contract with a literary agency to represent my memoir OUT FROM THE SHADOWS. I was ecstatic. The agent indicated that he would not be pitching it until after Labor Day because so many editors were away from the office. The contract required the agency to begin sending it out within 30 days of signing but delaying made sense. The agent who happened to be Jewish and suggested delaying until after Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur because he was going to be out of the office. This pushed the timing of submissions until October.

Then October 7 happened, and the world changed overnight. Within few weeks, my agent quit the industry. He left me to deal with the agency’s VP. She seemed nice and supportive. She asked me to send her the manuscript. A month later, she got back to me. The agency was not prepared to meet their contractual obligations. She wrote, “I am afraid I am not the right agent to represent this project going forward and feel you should begin looking for representation from another agent/agency.”

There was no doubt that was about me, a Jew, writing a book with Jewish content. No wonder my agent had quit. I was convinced that I had been dropped because I was Jewish which might explain why my original agent quit. I was upset and angry. The agency had my manuscript and book proposal for six months and done nothing for me. I’ve never named the agency and now I’m thinking why am I protecting them. They should be called out. It was The Seymour Agency. They had turned down a book that has turned out to be a success. It has been one of the top selling Holocaust and Jewish memoirs on Amazon for three months.

In every sphere of the arts, Jews are being canceled for being Jews. “Zionist” has become a dirty word, used to label anyone who supports Israel. Jewish authors have been reporting attempts to “cancel” them in the literary world. They’ve ranged from posting a series of negative book reviews, sometimes before the book is even published, to canceled talks and retracted invitations to literary events.

Author Edie Jarolim wrote, “This censorship list – because that’s what it is – chills me to the bone. I have been trying to tell people what the world is like for Jewish writers these days. Apparently expressing anything less than a call for the destruction of Israel puts you on the ‘do not read’ list.” It’s not much different than the book burning of Jewish authors by Nazi Germany.

Writer Elisa Albert was canceled because she was a Zionist Jew. She was supposed to be on a panel to discuss four women’s books at the University of Albany’s New York State Writer’s Festival. This had nothing to do with Zionism or Israel. This is the kind of cancelation that seems to reflect a growing wave of anti-Semitism. The arts community has become an echo chamber.

When a screenwriter wanted to option the rights for TV, they were advised that “nothing Jewish is getting up on Netflix”. She recalls being told that even Spielberg’s not getting anything through.

If Spielberg is struggling, what hope do the rest of us have?

In October, Debra Messing, David Mamet and Diane Warren are among the more than 1000 literary and entertainment industry figures to sign an open letter released by the non-profit entertainment industry organization Creative Community for Peace (CCFP) to oppose the boycott of Israeli publishing houses and Jewish authors.

Jewish musicians have been boycotted, and their concerts have been canceled. A black Jewish Israeli rapper, Noah Shufutinsky receives threats every day on social media. “I wake up to a new death threat surrounding just my relationship to my country, to my homeland, and to my culture…”

Michael Rapaport, an outspoken Jewish comedian, recently had his sold-out performance canceled in Madison, Wisconsin. The venue listed the ongoing protests in the area and concern for the audience’s safety as reasons for cancelation. When Jerry Seinfeld was chosen to speak at the commencement ceremony at Duke University, the school received complaints and requests to replace Seinfeld due to his outspoken support for Israel. The ceremony took place as planned, but when Seinfeld stepped up to the podium, dozens of students walked out, booing and chanting “Free Palestine.”

Though the arts scene for Jews looks downright depressing, we refuse to be silent.

Joseph Goebbels must be looking down on us and smiling.

If you are on Twitter (I just can’t get my head around the new name), you may have noticed your follower count has dropped noticeably since the U.S. election. I’ve lost about 5% of my followers.

Why the sudden drop in followers? It is suspected that a significant number were election bots which were being used to influence American voters. I suppose they were no longer needed after November 5. But the exodus of legitimate users is the result of several reasons including a mix of platform changes, user dissatisfaction, and the emergence of alternatives. My take is that, for many users or former users, the single factor that is driving them away from the platform is the owner, Elon Musk.

Just as Truth Social is a vehicle for Donald Trump, Twitter is clearly now Elon Musk’s app. His tweets appear on your feed even if you have blocked him. He plays with the algorithms to reflect his interests and beliefs and manipulates the reach of causes and ideas he doesn’t support. Some advocates and journalists have been banned from the site. The result is that communications on the site is being filtered and manipulated by Musk. Earlier this year, I was averaging almost 2 million impressions a month. Now it’s down to about ½ million per month. So much for being an absolute free speech believer.

There have been some positive platform changes such as longer posts, longer videos and going ad-free but all at a cost. But most changes have received a thumbs down from users. The blue check, which used to indicate that an account was notable, is now a revenue stream. This has led to impersonations of government and other public accounts. At the same time, banned have been allowed back onto the platform.

Many advertisers have also left Twitter. Consequently, the platform is filled with low-quality ads, promoted tweets, and automated accounts. Verified users’ posts and replies appear regardless of whether you follow them. So, users have less control over what content they see. The push toward monetized features like Twitter checkmarks and exclusive content subscriptions have created frustration among users. These changes have widened the gap between paid and free users, contributing to dissatisfaction.

Moderation on Twitter has been abysmal under Musk. Although Twitter have clear criteria with regards to inappropriate conduct and harassment, they are not often applying those rules when receiving complaints. This has frustrated users. The only remedy has been to block those people. Then Twitter introduced another change where blocked users could now see your tweets but are just not able to communicate with you.

Finally, there is the frustration with bots. When the verified status was changed to a paid feature, the false justification was to control bots. Since the takeover by Musk, the number of bots on the platform has exploded. Bots don’t just inflate the numbers of followers, but they also keep trying to engage with genuine people, send annoying messages, and even risking the online presence and privacy of everyday users.

Finally, the arrival of alternative platforms has encouraged people to leave in search of a social media app that is more like the original version of Twitter. Those alternatives include Mastedon, Threads and Bluesky. I’ve tried Threads and Bluesky and have so far been underwhelmed. As an author I use social media to promote my work. Threads has been a complete disappointment. Any writing related posts are generally ignored. Joke posts are popular although there far too many users who would know a joke if it hit them over the head. I’ve been a Bluesky user for a much shorter time, and it has some promise. But many users are people who supported Harris in the election and hate Trump and Musk. I have yet to determine whether this demographic will also be interested in books.

Should you leave Twitter for another platform? It depends on what you are looking for. Are you a casual user or do you use the platform for marketing? Here are some considerations.

Does Twitter align with your values, or are you unhappy with the platform’s current direction?Is the content you engage with and the connections you have still valuable and relevant?Have you explored alternative platforms? Do any of them better suit your needs and preferences?

If you are considering Bluesky there are a few things you also need to be aware of.

Google indexes Twitter posts. That alone is a great reason to stay on Twitter. This means your posts will appear in search engines like Google, Bing, etc.Advertising options are not available on BlueSky. They may offer that at some point.Bluesky still needs to be added to most social media scheduling tools, which means all manual posting for now.

If you leave Twitter, download your archive to repurpose it on Bluesky and elsewhere. Log into your Twitter account, scroll down to More, Click on Settings, and Click on Download Archive. You will be prompted to re-enter your password, and then you can request the download.

Also, deactivating your Twitter account might not be enough to erase your tweets, retweets, and mentions. Because they can remain accessible in various ways, leaving traces of your activity behind. So, if you really want to leave Twitter, you may want to clean up your past content before doing so. Deleting your tweets, retweets, and mentions ensures that your online history is wiped clean before you deactivate your account.

In 2022, I realized I had an issue with respect to branding. I had just released my third satirical novel and had established myself as a humorist over the previous 8 years. But my next book would be nonfiction. Not just nonfiction. but a heavy Holocaust-themed memoir.

Would my current audience be interested in the memoir or did I need to expand my audience? I chose the latter approach.

At the time, my social media platforms were loaded with funny posts to attract people who would appreciate my humor. My theory was that if they enjoy humor and read books, then some followers might consider buying my books. The strategy was somewhat effective.

So how does one expand their audience when there is such a wide range in genres? The first thing I did was change some of my screen names to “Jew in a Canoe“. Previously, I never had outwardly labelled myself as Jewish. The name change began to attract Jewish followers and some allies. The name change also signaled that the account would still contain humor.

The next step was changing the content of my social media posts. I continued to post the same number of funny and joke posts but I began slipping in serious posts. I would talk about my family’s experience in the Holocaust, a major focus of my memoir. In addition, I posted information about antisemitism, generational trauma, major events during the Holocaust, and my struggles with mental health.

I was taking a bit of a chance but it seemed to work. There was a little bit for everyone. Surprisingly, the some serious posts created significant interaction. The number of followers began to grow at a faster rate.

Next I began to make the same changes to my website/blog and monthly newsletter. I added a page to my website called “My Family’s Holocaust Story” which contained photos that would eventually be included in my memoir. I came up with new social media banners that said “Willie Handler, Author of Fiction and Nonfiction”. The transition was now complete.

Many people have heard me say that I was the last person who would write a memoir. That is because from a young age I learned to lock up my emotions, many memories, and anything uncomfortable. I had friends but kept them at a distance and rarely opened to people. That included my wife.

My lockdown project turned out to be a “memoir”. I loved doing research on my family’s history and every new revelation was exciting. But the writing was far less inspired. About a year into the project, I shared an early draft with a writing friend. She found the historical material interesting but pointed out that a memoir needs to include the perspective of the author. I began the first of many rewrites. At this point another writer connected me with their publisher. He reached out to me after reading my manuscript. We had a telephone conversation in which he asked me whether this was supposed to be a memoir or biography. Ouch.

I was crushed but not deterred. I slowly began to reach inside of me to express how my childhood and my relationships impacted on me. To do so meant breaking down the walls that kept my feeling sealed tight. As feelings came to the surface, so did negative memories and trauma. My manuscript went through a significant transformation and my mental health took a huge beating.

The manuscript was good enough to be accepted by a literary agency. But I continued to struggle. I was having nightmares, anxiety attacks and grief. I couldn’t see myself standing in front people talking about the book and at time I regretted writing the memoir. I finally decided I needed to seek help.

I was 69 years old and receiving therapy for first time. Did I understand how therapy worked? No. I spent several sessions talking about my parents and their experiences while my therapist sat and listened. She finally asked when I was going to talk about myself. The words of the publisher from 2 years before rang in my head. I really hated talking about myself which one of the things that’s landed me in therapy. Slowly, I opened up. Then another repeat from the memoir writing period occurred. New memories and trauma came to the surface. My mental health declined further. At one point, I even accused my therapist of making me worse. I tried to quit therapy but within two weeks I was back. The therapist was so patient as she waited for me to do the hard work – grinding through my problems rather than running from them. I remember once she had told me that I wasn’t alone on this journey, she was standing right beside me.

Then a major triggering event occurred. The October 7 attack on Israel was traumatizing. Shortly afterwards, I dropped by the agency and had to once again search for a home for my memoir. I literally hit rock bottom and on one horrible weekend found myself calling a crisis hotline at 3 am.

On this journey, a lot began to change for me. I re-examined my perspective towards my parents, my relationships with friends and family, and what was important to me. Things that avoided, I was now confronting but along with that came many triggers, and many emotional highs and lows. Recently in therapy I did a mapping exercise where I described the internal and external attributes to my hypo-stimulated and hyper-stimulated states. This is a step to managing those triggers.

Another important step was to go public with my struggles. This was probably the most difficult aspect of this journey. It was one thing sharing with my therapist but a much bigger challenge to open up to others. I just thought about all the people struggling in silence and how they needed to hear that getting help was worthwhile. As I began to post on social media, several people contacted me to say how they have been inspired to try or return to therapy. A more important step was the concept of my next book. I determined that the trauma I inherited from my parents was not much different than what other children of Holocaust survivors were experiencing. How many others were suffering in silence? So, I began interviewing of descendants of survivors and by the time I competed those interviews I had spoken to 96 individuals from across the globe. I also created a Facebook page for those descendants to provide a place to share. My future in Holocaust education was now set in motion.

In the weeks and days leading up to the launch of my memoir I realized the dread and anxiety I was experiencing over the past year regarding the launch had melted away. I was quite excited and looking forward to it. About 80 people attended and I was humbled by their response and also felt empowered. That afternoon I took a major step forward in the healing process.

This journey really has no end. I thank the many people who helped in this journey, supported me or cheered me on. I could not have done it without you.

For about 400 days now Jewish communities around the world have lived in fear. We see the rising hate directed at us. We are told we are exxagerating. anti-Zionism is not antisemitism and by the way are you a Zionist. We are told there’s no Jewish hate at the anti-Israel rallies. We are told it’s free speech not hate. Slogans like “From River to Sea” are not antisemitic at all.

Meanwhile Jews are being cancelled. Synagogues, and schools, and Jewish students are being targeted. We are called Nazis. But the attacks are becoming more vicious. Nazi flags were waved outside a Michigan theater showing a production in Anne Frank. Violent mobs roamed Amsterdam attacking Jews. Just like the Nazis some are stating the attacks are the fault of Jews. Some politicians condemn these acts but do nothing to stop them. Police stand by and watch and rarely intervene.

We’ve seen this before. Persecution involves several stages. Nazi Germany used a combination of laws and decrees, propaganda, intimidation, and violence to segregate Jews from German society, remove them from the economy, and force them to leave the country.

First is the propaganda. Age old tropes are reappearing. Jews control everything. They can’t be trusted. Intimidation has been going on since the day after October 7. Jews are being isolated on college campuses, in workplaces and in the community. And now the violence has begun. Two teens were arrested recently in Ottawa for planning to plant a bomb at a pro-Israel rally. It’s only a matter of time until Jews are killed. And who’s fault will it be? Jews. They brought on themselves.

Some people have reached out to me. Is it time to run? Well where can we run to? It’s worse in Europe than North America. There’s only Israel and they are under siege by Iran and their many proxies. But I would rather die defending a Jewish homeland than a country that won’t fully accept me.