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How do you find justice for unforgivable crimes of the past — and how does trying to do so affect your life?
That’s the question Naomi Ragen’s new book, The Enemy Beside Me, explores through the character of Milia Gottstein, who, like her father and grandfather before her, attempted to bring Nazi war criminals to justice and ensure that the voices of Holocaust victims are never silenced.
Just as she’s about to pass along her work to a new generation, Milia finds herself in a country that considers her a public enemy because it is unwilling to accept its responsibility for the annihilation of almost its entire Jewish community. When she winds up tangled in unexpected intimacy with a free-spirited ally, her already-complicated life descends into turmoil.
Ragen joins us to discuss Lithuania’s refusal to acknowledge its Holocaust-era sins, her iconoclastic place in the Orthodox community and the role writing plays in her expression of Judaism.
American-born novelist, playwright and journalist living in Israel, Naomi Ragen is the author of the play Women's Minyan and 12 internationally best-selling novels, including Jephte’s Daughter, listed among the 100 most important Jewish books of all time. She is a feminist Orthodox Jew and women’s rights activist.