I’ve heard it said in the name of Rav Shach that our generation doesn’t hear enough stories about kiddush Hashem
I first started writing Wildlands around ten years ago, after I realized that the painful period of the Cantonists, which altered the course of Jewish history, didn’t feature much in adult Jewish literature, only in children’s stories. I thought that such a critical period deserved to be treated more in depth and with greater maturity.
I’ve heard it said in the name of Rav Shach that our generation doesn’t hear enough stories about kiddush Hashem. There are stories, of course, but since they’re usually written for children, they lack emotional depth and don’t prepare us to deal with real-life challenges in this area. When I heard this, I felt that I wanted to write a book where a very human hero faces this ultimate challenge, fails, but in the end bravely makes the right decisions.
The name Wildlands refers both to the wild territories the hero traverses in Russia and America and to the wildness of human nature. Our natures need so much work and tending, and are perhaps never fully subdued. We always discover more inside ourselves, and there’s always more wildness to tame.
I spent a lot of time doing research. I had to study Russian history. I needed to understand how the army and the Cossacks operated, and what the Jewish community was like.
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