An Interview With Rabbi Dr. Andrea (A.D.) Lobel

By Derek Newman-Stille

Spec Can: Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Andrea: Certainly! I’m a rabbi in the Jewish Renewal movement, a progressive Jewish group. I used to work full-time as an advertising copywriter, but decided to go back to school in 2002 to begin a career in religion, so I earned my M.A. and Ph.D., as well as rabbinic ordination. Long story short, when the professor jobs weren’t there when I graduated with the doctorate, I retrained as a librarian and earned my M.I.S. I work full-time as a librarian now, and greatly enjoy it. Throughout, I always wrote and edited–that remained an abiding love and practice.

Spec Can: Can you tell us a little bit about your work in speculative fiction?

Andrea: Like many of us in the field, I had been a long-time reader of SFF, and I attended a few SFF conventions years ago. I had also written dozens of short stories over the years, but was too shy to submit them (finally doing so now, decades later). When I met and married my husband, Mark Shainblum, we talked about many different projects we might do together, and one day, before we had our child, we came up with the idea for an alternate history anthology related to Jewish history.

Spec Can: What inspired you to create the Other Covenants anthology?

Andrea: The title came first–Other Covenants: Alternate Histories of the Jewish People. The project unfolded from there, but with some interesting twists along the way!

It was definitely inspiration. We know not whence it came. But we were quite literally sitting in the car together after doing a grocery order in the middle of a snowstorm. We decided to stay in the car for a little while until the blizzard died down, and we talked for a long time, brainstorming ideas. The title came to one of us–and to this day, we don’t remember which of us conceived of it–and all at once, we knew we had to make it a reality.

Spec Can: What were some of the twists you encountered when creating this anthology?

Andrea: Well, we had this idea, and it really came to us fully-formed. We knew we wanted to invite certain authors to submit contributions. And then, life happened. We had a baby, as well as two household moves, one of them from Montreal to Ottawa. But in the interim, we pitched the idea to David G. Hartwell at a convention, and he loved the idea. His death left a great hole in the SFF community, of course. He was such a wonderful person.

On a lesser note, of course, we needed to find another possible publisher, and we did, and we were nearing the point of publication when that publisher folded. And then, the pandemic began, so we slowly sent out more queries trying to find a publisher that would be a good fit for Other Covenants.

It was quite the odyssey!

Spec Can: I was surprised, when I read it, that there were voices of non Jewish people included. I was wondering what inspired this? It must have been careful work for non Jewish people to talk about Jewish alternative history

Andrea: That’s a very good point! My co-editor (and husband) Mark Shainblum and I wanted it to be focused on Jewish alternate history, but we also very much wanted to be inclusive–to invite many different voices and perspectives. We did approach a few authors who were not Jewish and they felt that they weren’t sure if they knew enough to contribute, but in the end, we did receive contributions from several non-Jewish authors. Of course, in many cases, we don’t know the contributors’ religious beliefs or backgrounds, and we never asked. The stories and poems shone on their own terms, I think!

Spec Can: That is fantastic. What is it like to balance your work as a librarian, rabbi, and speculative fiction editor? Do they influence each other?

Andrea: You ask fantastic questions (literally)! Sometimes I look back and wonder why I’ve done–and combined–these careers, but then I remind myself that these paths were taken for different reasons: economic necessity, calling, etc. I like to think of myself as a synthesist. I believe that these paths are truly complementary and they do influence each other. I work as a lecturer in religion as well, and added coaching to my skills as part of my rabbinic work. As a rabbi, I serve a mostly non-denominational or unaffiliated population, and serve mainly as a teacher, pastoral counsellor, and coach, helping to provide clients with information they seek when it comes to digging deep into their values to create an authentic, meaningful Jewish life that works for them. As a librarian, part of the training is knowing not only how to search for information and how to interpret it, but also, how to interview library users to elicit exactly what their information needs are. And as a speculative fiction editor and author, in this field, we’re all about envisioning possibilities, and an integral part of that is asking good, and sometimes deep, questions about what is and what could be. I think that all of these paths are interlinked and work together. No matter where life brings us, nothing is wasted. Particularly not learning.

Spec Can: Have you done any fiction writing yourself?

Andrea: Yes, I have. Quite a lot, actually. And yet, years ago, I didn’t have the confidence to submit my work. I’ve written a great deal of short fiction that I began looking through and re-reading during the pandemic, deciding which ones were good enough to be edited and submitted. I’ve begun submitting those pieces, and writing a Jewish-themed SFF/urban fantasy-horror novel, set during both the Holocaust and in the 1980s. I’ve done a lot of work on developing confidence as an author, and my co-editing work on Other Covenants was instrumental in helping me gradually work through that. It also helps that my introversion is wonderfully counterbalanced by my husband’s extroversion. He has really helped me get out of my comfort zone. We’re a great team in that way, and in many other ways.

Spec Can: I’m so excited to see your work out in the world. Oh could you talk a bit about your Jewish urban fantasy-horror novel or is it too early?

Andrea: Thank you! I’m excited too. What I’m happy to share here for now is that it’s about generational family trauma linked to the Holocaust, the Shoah, but is also about a supernatural civil war that affects this Jewish family. Writing it has led me to explore generational trauma more broadly, in fact. I’m currently taking an online course with Rabbi Dr. Tirzah Firestone, a Jungian psychotherapist and an expert in generational trauma. There is so much percolating under the surface that affects our perceptions and behaviours, not only as individuals, but in family systems across generations, in communities, and globally. Healing this is key to developing integrated, harmonious systems and selves. Yet it’s hard work. It has been informing my writing. There is no way one can avoid diving into the topic of trauma in some way when one writes about the Holocaust or other traumatic times in history.

Spec Can: I would imagine your rabbinical practice and, particularly coaching, would really be an asset for writing about intergenerational trauma. Do you find that you relied on these for your novel?

Andrea: Yes, I think so. Knowing and working within Jewish communities, the trauma is still everpresent. Individuals whose parents were Holocaust survivors often suffer from what is called second-generation trauma, for example. When I write, I try to feel the emotion and be part of the scene, and because of my experiences as a Jewish person, this is both challenging and powerful. My own parents and grandparents were not in Europe during the Holocaust, incidentally, but my late maternal grandmother told me that after she and her immediate family emigrated to Canada in the early 1930s, they kept up a correspondence with her beloved cousins, aunties, and uncles. At a certain point during the Holocaust, the letters stopped arriving.

Spec Can: That must be so difficult to write, especially when you are getting into what your characters are feeling at such a horrible time in history

Andrea: Yes, and I have to write at a more measured pace. I took some time off to research trauma and get certified as a mindfulness facilitator as a result, in fact. When I need to, I jump into writing short fiction to clear the emotional palate, for example. Or I meditate. It’s all about self-regulation, and it gives me the strength to look at the darkness while not allowing it to consume me. I think we need to look at the shadow side of society and of human beings, to fully ‘grok’ who we are, and how we can make things better for ourselves, our communities, and our world. That is difficult if one has empathy intact. But I don’t think we can afford to ignore all the elements of human nature–or to simply shrug it off as the way things are. There is a strong social justice mandate in Judaism that I don’t think is congruent with toxic positivity.

Spec Can: It’s so important to remind folks of the horrors of the holocaust. Did you find editing Other Covenants triggering at times, especially when it explored traumatic topics?

Andrea: Another great question. Thank you! I won’t speak for my co-editor, but many of the stories really did tug at the heart and at the gut, or kishkes, as is said in Yiddish. A few were definitely hard to read, but that is where their power resided, and this was precisely why we chose them for the anthology. We did our best to include a mix of more lighthearted stories and poems and darker pieces. For example, The Sea of Salt, by Elana Gomel, was among the latter, and does relate to the Holocaust. It is a gripping story. Another one that got us both in the kishkes was Shtetl Days, by Harry Turtledove, in which Jewish life had to be reenacted because. . .

Let’s just say that alternate timelines are not always rosy.

Spec Can: Were there any stories that stood out to you?

Andrea: It’s so difficult to highlight only a few, of course, because all of the stories and poems grabbed us. But by contrast to the darker pieces, there were also stories like White Roses In their Eyes, by Matthew Kressel, where the protagonist was a very-much-alive Anne Frank. When we read that one, both Mark and I listed it as a definite yes. It moved us both to tears. Similarly, The Face that Launched a Thousand Ships, by Milton Verskin, in which, among other things, the philosopher Spinoza finds happiness and gets married.

Spec Can: I think, in particular, the stories of diaspora stood out to me and there is so much diasporic history for the Jewish people. What was it like navigating this sense of dislocation in Jewish history?

Andrea: In what sense? In the anthology, or historically?

Dislocation is an excellent way of describing, it, by the way.

Spec Can: I’m thinking of the reminder of Jewish diaspora while you were editing. Especially since it was a theme in so many stories and I imagine it would have been a tough reminder of that dislocation and how it feels to be part of a people constantly seeking a place to call home

Andrea: Great question, that. The challenge of diaspora is always present as a kind of underlying tension in Jewish communities, I think. Living in two worlds can be a real challenge in ethnic communities–though I think the feeling fades a bit as the generations continue onward. For example, one set of my grandparents were in Canada by the 1910s-20s. The other arrived here by the 1930s, so both of my parents were born here. I’ve never lived in Israel, and I feel Canadian. And yet, during childhood, one day, our landlords were angry with my mother and yelled at us to “Go back to Israel!” Where we had never lived. It was a horrible reminder that some people, the antisemites out there, think of Jews as somehow not belonging “here”–wherever here happens to be. I can only wonder what this will look like 50 and 100 years from now.

And being an optimist at some level, I hope for a truly pluralistic and inclusive society for all. This is one of the reasons why I gravitated toward teaching religion, in fact.

It’s also why I’ve been vocal against both antisemitism and Islamophobia–neither of which is acceptable. Full stop.

Spec Can: That’s so brilliant, and thank you for your inclusive approach and for your teachings. You mentioned above that Judaism has an aspect of social justice. Did you find many of the stories spoke to you as activist or were transformative?

Andrea: You’re very kind. Thank you! Yes, Judaism has a very strong ethical tradition called mussar, which has detailed guidelines about how one should behave toward others. The concept of derekh eretz is key here–treating others with respect and dignity. There is also a popular concept called tikkun olam, which is about mending the world. It guides many progressive Jewish social justice initiatives–for example, many Jewish clergy I know (including myself) signing petitions to ensure that medications reach Gaza. With respect to the stories in Other Covenants, there were many that touched upon the theme of social justice. One that addressed questions of gender, for example, was The Holy Bible of the Free People of Hasmonea, by Esther Alter. This was a brilliant feminist story with terrific worldbuilding in the (scholar hat on here) “rewritten Bible” tradition. The ancient Near Eastern goddess Asherah is a key character, for example.

There were other stories that transcended the gender binary as well.

Spec Can: What is it like to work with Mark Shainblum on your projects? How do you enjoy the collaboration process?

Andrea: It was such a wonderful collaboration. Mark and I developed a fairly smooth process over time. We did the first pass of reading separately, and ranked the stories on a spreadsheet. We then met and went over all of the yeses, nos, and maybes, and where we happened to disagree (which was rare), we talked it through and decided which of those stories best fit the mix of existing stories in the anthology. Mark is a creative dynamo, and a great editor. (He’s peering over my shoulder as I write this. Just kidding.)

What is most interesting, and telling, about our marriage, and our love, is that at the time that we were collaborating, we were separated. A number of events, including our collaboration on Other Covenants, led us to realize that we made a wonderful team, and we eventually reconciled, to our mutual joy. I feel thankful every morning, waking up with this wonderful human.

Spec Can: You two are fabulous. I’m so glad that you were such a powerful creative team. Do you have any thought about next collaborative processes?

Andrea: Yes, Mark and I have signed with Ben Yehuda Press to co-edit our next anthology, The Best of Jewish SF, and that is in process. The stories will be reprints. There is another collaboration afoot on an SFF anthology related to Jewish theology, and I hope to share more about that when we have all the details.

Spec Can: That is fantastic!! I have really enjoyed chatting with you. Is there anything further you would like to add to our interview?

Andrea: I’ve really enjoyed this as well, and I appreciate all your thoughtful questions. Thank you so much for inviting me to be interviewed!