On Sunday, March 9th at 3 p.m. we will be hosting a reading for Detroit songwriter, philanthropist, and author of These are the Developments of the Human, Ethan Daniel Davidson.
His new book is And They Arose Early To Do Sexual Violence: My Personal Mirror of Torah, a book dealing with “instances of sexual violence in the Classical Jewish Texts, and the responses to that violence: sometimes measured and appropriate, sometimes uncontrolled and disproportionate.”
Copies of And They Arose Early To Do Sexual Violence: My Personal Mirror of Torah are in stock now at Book Beat and will be available at the reading.
This event is free and open to the public. Email bookbeatorders@gmail.com or call 248-968-1190 for more information.
From a recent interview in The Detroit Jewish News:
Ethan Davidson has traveled the world performing songs he has written, recorded 15 albums, works with the William Davidson Foundation in memory of his late father, studies Judaism and is about to start presentations about a book he has just finished writing — And They Arose Early to Do Sexual Violence: My Personal Mirror of Torah.
The topic, which covers acts of violence and responses throughout Jewish history, is one he has been thinking about and discussing with religious scholars and friends for 10 years, but events in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and beyond made him want to relate the horrific happenings to events described in Jewish historical texts.
[…]
“The first part of the book goes to some pretty dark places and was very difficult for me,” Davidson said. “The later part of the book is about relationships, so the second half of the book ends up in a very positive place, a very healing place. If the reader can make it all the way through the book, we can all end up in a good place. We end up in the light.”
Davidson has given time over the years to Zoom meetings with people who ultimately questioned the authenticity of the events in Israel last year, and he has been disturbed by some of the negative comments. He heard, for example, that stories of the original violence were fabricated for anti-Palestinian purposes.
Those instances of falsified tales motivated him to publish the book.
“I was writing the book for those questioning these things and denying the sexual violence of Oct. 7,” he said. “I had them in mind and thought I could write this and share with them, but I’ve been cancelled by some of those friends and felt none of them planned to read it.”
Torah as a Mirror
Davidson uses Torah as a mirror for examining his own ideas and thinking about what would be the appropriate response to sexual violence. As one example, he looks back on the way a prince violated Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, and the way her brothers reacted in trying to bring forth a severe reaction.
Although the brothers went against townspeople, it has been said that people were afraid of the prince and would not go against him. Similarly, it has been said that people in Gaza were afraid of the terrorists and followed them.
“We have a right to defend ourselves, and we have a right to prosecute the people who perpetrate violence,” Davidson said but questioned the limits of that and mulled how we know when we’ve gone the acceptable limits in terms of a response.
Three years ago, Davidson, a University of Michigan graduate majoring in language and literature, published a book featuring poetry with links to Judaism — These Are the Developments of the Human. On Oct. 7, he had been working on a book about his music and performance experiences but dropped that to address issues related to the tragedy launched on Oct. 7.
Davidson will be giving several talks on the book, and he said he is trying to base each one on the particular audience and the different issues he has covered. He starts out by explaining the motivation for the book and moves into its various segments, including the limits of a just war.
“I have Muslim friends who have stood with me through this whole war,” said the author, who can understand the Hebrew he reads. “You don’t want to say that these terrorist groups represent Islam because they don’t. They are an extreme version of Islam.”
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—Suzanne Chessler, The Detroit Jewish News