After October 7th, Marsha Lederman of The Globe and Mail began sharing her thoughts about the conflict. The columns she wrote during the first year have been gathered in a new book, "October 7th: Searching for the Humanitarian Middle." How has her thinking evolved, and what are her hopes and fears for the future? Marsha, it's great to have you on the program. How are you doing?

I'm okay. Thank you so much for having me.

I want to start with a quote from your book. It reads: 'I thought, whatever I write, whatever I say, I am going to get criticism. I am possibly going to get it from all sides. It'll be pointed out that I am Jewish, and the argument will be that I'm too biased to write about this. But I am also a progressive liberal Jew who is already on record as being opposed to the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. I consider myself a humanist and have always desperately wanted peace with the Palestinians and dignity and security for all. It felt inevitable that I would anger people on all points of this tricky spectrum.'

Now, Marsha, in your previous book, "Kiss the Red Stairs," you wrote about your experiences growing up with your parents who were Holocaust survivors. You talk about the intergenerational trauma that came with that. Given all of that, what were your initial thoughts about your approach to writing about October 7th?

Yeah, well, I wasn't even sure if I should write about it as you just read about. I was, you know, that first shocking weekend. It was Thanksgiving. It was also a Jewish holiday, and it was my son's 15th birthday. So it was, you know, a very kind of happy time at my home.

And then I became completely focused on what had happened and what was happening in Israel. And I, you know, my head buried in my phone constantly while trying to be a not terrible mother to my son, having his birthday weekend and trying to find some joy in that.

And all I could think about was how much I wanted to write about it, but I wasn't sure. Could I write from this perspective? Would that be fair? Could I remove myself from my own trauma, my intergenerational traumas you mentioned, and write about these events properly as a journalist?

And I was also experiencing that trauma in a way I had never experienced in my life. There was my son was having a birthday sleepover and I fell asleep. And at one point I was woken up by a knock on the door. And I thought, they're here. They've they've come to get me.

And that was quick. Of course, it was one of his friends, but this was, you know, it's a recurring dream that I have that I or nightmare that I'm being hunted down by Nazis. And suddenly these Nazis had become the Hamas terrorists who had led these attacks on October 7th.

So all of this was happening and swirling. But what I came to finally realise, in thinking about it and really speaking with my editors, was that I didn't I didn't need to remove this historical and contemporary baggage from what I was going to write about it, or even in order to write about it.

I in fact, it brought something else to the table. So I did write about it that weekend and many, many times since.

Well, give me a sense of how your thinking changed from sort of those first initial columns to sort of a full year. Did it change over over that period of time?

Oh well, so much changed, right? It wasn't even my thinking so much as I was observing these horrors that were going on. And as the war in Gaza got worse and worse, I was no longer writing. Just as a Jewish person and a child of Holocaust survivors who was responding to this attack on the people of Israel.

I was writing as a human being, as a mother watching the suffering in Gaza as well, and thinking about the hostages who were being held and held and held. And I felt like my observations evolved through this time as events evolved, and also that I was able to step back a little from that emotional self that started on writing on October 8th and 9th and become more, you know, more of a human being and a journalist witnessing this.

The subtitle of your book, "Searching for the Humanitarian Middle," what exactly is that?

Yeah, I was in this space where I, you know, I'm a member of the Jewish community. I'm also a small-L liberal, proud progressive, as you said. But I wasn't agreeing with everything I was hearing from either sort of quote unquote side.

And the more I thought about it, the more I kept coming to this idea that I was in the middle. I was mourning the victims of October 7th. I was worried about the hostages. I was also devastated by the destruction in Gaza and especially the deaths and the the the numbers were mounting to almost well to unimaginable heights. Tens of thousands of people killed.

And I understood the need for the Israeli government to respond. But as things dragged on, I began to see the war as an over response, and I was disagreeing with the actions of the Israeli government, but at the same time, not writing off Israel as a country that doesn't deserve to exist. Or all Israelis, as you know, monsters.

And I care for Palestinians. I'm pro-Palestinian, but I despise Hamas. So that's how I came to this feeling that I was in the middle.

And then the term humanitarian, which, you know, I realise is, you know, sounds ludicrous when you consider all of the all of the horrible things that have happened. But I kept thinking of myself as being the human before I'm anything else.

I'm a human being before I'm a Jewish person. I'm a human being before I'm someone who has family in Israel. I'm a human being before I'm a journalist.

And so that's how I sort of came to this idea of being in the humanitarian middle, recognising and mourning the tragedy on all sides.

I imagine being in the middle means that you are also getting feedback from either side. Can you walk me through some of the some of the feedback that you've received from your columns and from this compilation?

Well, I'll stay away from the feedback. That would not be safe for broadcast, but I listen. I have received a lot of feedback and continue to. A lot of it is very passionate. People are writing as I was with their feelings. They are so upset. They are and they often come to it with from a side as well.

And I've had people very, very upset with me from both sides. I've had Jewish people upset that I have called out Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government. I have had people who are, you know, pro-Palestinian. But again, I consider myself pro-Palestinian who have felt that I wasn't hard enough on Israel.

And very long missives from people explaining where they come from, explaining what they were going through. And I was affected, really affected by all of those notes that I still continue to get. Some of them were very, very nasty, and those I tried to dismiss and forget about.

I want to pick up on sort of the climate that we're in right now. Anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim hate is on the rise. A couple of examples. There was the all girls elementary school in Toronto that had been targeted, the Jewish one that was targeted with gunshots in Ontario and Oshawa. A Muslim woman had her hijab forcibly removed during a swarming.

There are countless examples on either side of this, and I want to get a better understanding. In your view, what are the consequences of this?

It has been awful. Not only these events themselves, but then being told from an antisemitism perspective. This is what I can speak to because, you know, I haven't obviously experienced anti-Muslim hate, but I see it and it's very upsetting.

But then, you know, these events happen and then we're told, you know, it's not really anti-Semitism, it's anti-Zionism. And I agree, you can criticize Israel and you can criticize the Israeli government. And that doesn't mean you're being anti-Semitic.

But there has been a bleeding, there is no question. And then, you know, to be told, oh, you're complaining about this when there's a war going on, I get it. I am very safe here in my home in Canada. I'm not in a war zone, but at the same time, I, as a Canadian, should not have to be subjected to hateful remarks that are based on my ethnicity or race or religion.

And I'm saying my but, you know, I haven't personally been attacked other than on email or online, but I the numbers are staggering in terms of what the Jewish community is experiencing and the Muslim community.

I as a Jewish person was I felt almost like I was a repository for people's stories. There was a point when I was getting, you know, emails almost every day, people telling me these stories that were so upsetting and I couldn't always write about them.

I wrote about just a very few of them, but I was really affected by it. And I want to say that, you know, for the other people, like the bystanders who are seeing this, who are not Muslim or who are not Jewish and don't have to worry about it, I think, to be to dismiss it as unfair and to dismiss it as not a big deal feels like gaslighting.

And I have to say, of all the people who have reached out to me who are not Jewish about, you know, how I'm doing when there's a terrible event, it's a Muslim woman, another writer who I've never even met in person.

But we started an email correspondence after October 7th, who was always been so concerned about how I'm doing. And that has been one little bright light in a very dark time.

This year, Toronto passed a bubble zone bylaw restricting protests around places of worship, daycares, schools in the city. One of your columns you talk about in the in the early days, protests happening around hospitals, what are your thoughts on on targeted protests?

Target consulates, embassies, government entities? Please do not target houses of worship. That is. I mean, I don't even think I need to explain why that's not right. Please don't target kids schools.

You know, I have great nieces and nephews who attend a Jewish day school in Toronto, and every time I visit, there's a huge command post out there because the security is required. When I went to synagogue here for the in Vancouver, where I live for the High Holidays, I had to pass through security like I was at the airport.

This is not. We're not the ones who should be yelled at or protested. If you want to protest at the Israeli consulate, go ahead or the American consulate. But please think about. Think about it before you, you know, make make a place that should be safe, a place that feels unsafe.

In your book, you talk a lot about open letters. You yourself write one, and it is directed to Benjamin Netanyahu. What were you hoping to accomplish with that open letter?

Well, I don't think Benjamin Netanyahu was read it. I never thought he was going to read it, but it was written out of desperation, anxiety, despair. That's probably the right word.

Begging Mr. Netanyahu to stop the war. And I know it's not just Netanyahu. It was Hamas that attacked on October 7th, but they are a terrorist group, and he leads a supposedly democratic government.

So that's why I was writing to him directly imploring him to stop the killing in Gaza, imploring him to agree to a cease fire and to open his heart to a two-state solution, which I believe is the answer to this absolute nightmare.

And here we are, another year later. And my last question to you, Marcia, is, you know, what are your hopes for a peace plan?

Oh, depends on the day. How hopeful I am. Actually, I still believe that a two-state solution is possible. That is my ultimate hope.

It's not going to be easy to achieve, but I do think it's. It is possible. It has never been more necessary than since this war began. I think the answer here is for Jews to have the state they were promised by the UN after the Holocaust, and for Palestinians to have the state they were also promised.

And the Palestinians deserve their own state, their own land, self-determination, peace and security and food and education and everything that every person should have a right to. And I would also suggest that Israel cannot be truly free and secure and safe until Palestinians have this, too.

So that's my hope. It might be pie in the sky. It might be Pollyanna-ish, but I'm holding on to it.

Marsha Lederman, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate you taking the time and your insights as well.

Thank you for inviting me onto your show.