Q: Why and how, after over thirty years as a clinical chemist, did you become a novelist?

A: I was never one of those folks who always wanted to write a book. Yet I was a voracious reader of fiction. But after learning of Rashi’s daughters in a women’s Talmud class, I wanted to learn more about them—which led me to research about Jewish women’s lives in eleventh-century France. What I found out in five years of research was so interesting that I wanted to share it, or at least write it down so I wouldn’t forget. I decided to write the book I wanted to read, which didn’t exist yet. Since fiction was the genre I preferred, I set to work on a novel I called Rashi’s Daughters. The first draft was six hundred pages long, single spaced, so I divided it into a trilogy, one volume for each of the three daughters. When that series was successful, I wrote about another learned historical Jewish woman who intrigued me—Rav Hisda’s daughter, who lived in the Babylonian rabbinic community that created the Talmud.

Q: Why, after a novel set in the twentieth century, did you decide to write one set in Biblical times?

A: Every Spring, as my family prepares for our Passover Seder, we watch the animated movie based on the Biblical Exodus, Prince of Egypt. Similar to the 1956 live-action film, The Ten Commandments, viewers see baby Moses sent down the Nile by his enslaved mother, then raised by Pharaoh’s daughter, only to run away and encounter God in a burning bush, after which Moses returns to afflict Egypt with ten plagues to force Pharaoh to free the Hebrew slaves. When Pharaoh changes his mind and sends his army after them, God splits the sea so the Hebrews can escape while the Egyptians drown. Next thing we know, Moses is bringing down the Tablets carved with the Ten Commandments from Mt. Sinai. But I noticed one key difference in the animated movie: as the Hebrews are fleeing, some Egyptian soldiers drop their weapons and walk with them. According to the Torah, these soldiers are among the “mixed multitude” of non-Israelites who also leave Egypt and accept circumcision (becoming converts) before the Battle of Jericho. I was enthralled with this mixed multitude: why did they abandon Egypt and the Egyptian gods to join the Israelites and worship their God? What was it like for them? In particular, what was it like for the Hebrew women? So the plot for a new historical novel arose.

Q: With all your books, you learned something exciting that you never knew before. What did you learn from researching The Midwives’ Escape?

A: At first, I thought that there was almost no support for much of the biblical story we read in Exodus and Numbers. For example, according to Exodus 12:37, 600,000 men of fighting age left Egypt with Moses during the Exodus, along with women and children. This would amount to approximately two million people leaving Egypt at a time when the total Egyptian population was only around 2,000,000. But after joining BAS (Biblical Archaeology Society), which gave me online access to 50 years of their quarterly magazine, Biblical Archaeology Review, plus their eBooks, articles and seminars, I learned that there is more evidence to support the Exodus story than I’d believed. Google “Merneptah Stele”, also called the “Israel Stele” for an example.

Q: In your historical fiction novels, you often highlight unexpected details from ancient Jewish texts. What will readers discover in The Midwives’ Escape?

A: Readers will discover that Jacob’s son Asher had a daughter Serach who is mentioned in the Bible in the count of the Israelites who went down Egypt (Gen. 46:17) and in the enumeration of the Israelites at the steppes of Moab (Num. 26:46), thus indicating that she lived well over one hundred years. Aside from this, she takes no part in any narrative, nor is anything said about her. To explain her long life, a plethora of Midrashic traditions exist about this woman and thus the faceless Biblical character becomes a fascinating personality. Her history is intertwined with the story of the migration to Egypt and enslavement, and with redemption and the return to Erez Israel. Because she lived to an extremely old age, she was blessed with much earthly wisdom and knowledge, which she used to help the people of Israel as needed, even during the time of the Rabbis.

Q: What kind of research did you do before writing The Midwives’ Escape?

A: My bibliography of sources details the wide variety of materials I used in my research. The Author’s Note in the book explains how I did my research. The biggest difference between researching The Midwives’ Escape versus my earlier historical novels is the enormous amount of information now available about life in Biblical Israel (late Bronze Age through early Iron Age).

Q: What are you working on next? A: I am researching and outlining a spinoff from The Midwives’ Escape that is tentatively called Serach’s Story. It would continue the long lifetime of Serach bat Asher, who readers meet in The Midwives’ Escape.