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WORK TITLE: Shtum
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: London, England
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: British
http://www.npr.org/2017/05/27/530235229/in-shtum-a-portrait-of-autism-drawn-from-real-life * https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/books/interview-former-journalist-jem-lester-on-writing-a-novel-about-life-with-an-autistic-child-a3211521.html
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: no2016077975
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/no2016077975
HEADING: Lester, Jem
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670 __ |a Shtum, 2016 |b title page (Jem Lester) preliminaries (author, journalist and teacher who lives in London, England)
PERSONAL
Divorced; children: yes.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Journalist and educator. Worked as a journalist for nine years; taught English and media studies for nine years.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Jem Lester is a former journalist and English teacher. He worked as a journalist for nine years and also taught English and media studies for that long as well. Lester began writing his first novel while a master’s student in a creative writing program.
Lester published his debut novel, Shtum, in 2017. Based on the author’s experiences with his own autistic son, the novel centers on the relationship between devoted by flawed father Ben and his autistic and mute ten-year-old son, Jonah. Ben’s lawyer wife, Emma, agrees that Jonah should be placed in a residential school for special-needs children. However, the pair must pretend to be in the middle of a divorce in order to counter the challenge set forth by the local school district which would otherwise have to pay for Jonah’s high tuition. Ben and Jonah move in with his gruff father, Georg, while going through the legal proceedings.
In an article in the London Evening Standard, Lester talked about his motivation for writing the novel. “I wrote Shtum because I was always struck by the irony of Noah’s ability to tell me what he wanted despite having no language…. Writing it certainly wasn’t a therapy and there were times when I found it painful. Bear in mind that the book finishes but the story behind it is our lives, which carry on. There are still huge obstacles ahead.”
A contributor to Kirkus Reviews commented that “Lester’s tendency toward preachy platitudes—‘without loving myself, I cannot hope to love another’–undercuts the power of his heart-wrenching characters and plot.” A Publishers Weekly contributor claimed that “complex characters and wonderful descriptions combine to create an honest yet blunt portrayal.” In a review in the London Guardian, Saskia Baron summarized that “the novel’s text is broken up with officious letters from authorities, crammed with Orwellian doublespeak. It is also peppered with ironically deployed icons of the type Jonah uses to communicate. At times Lester’s ambitious cinematic crosscutting between showdowns with officialdom and stories from the past puts a strain on the narrative flow. Overall, though, this is an impressive novel.” Writing in the Financial Times, Isabel Berwick opined that “seeing Emma through Ben’s eyes—she leaves him in sole charge of Jonah for months—makes her seem harsh and odd. Why leave her child like that? It’s the underwritten, unsatisfying aspect of the book. She does eventually reappear with an explanation, but this is really the story of the men in the family.”
In a review in Washington Post Book World, Eli Gottlieb reasoned that the novel “is a bit of a mixed bag. The author elects to tell the story in first person present tense, a choice that adds a choppy, staccato feel to things and also underlines some of the narrative discontinuities that creep into the text along the way. The dialogue can occasionally feel a bit canned.” Gottlieb conceded that “what Shtum does do well, and memorably, is describe the ferocity of attachment a parent feels toward a disabled child.” Reviewing the novel in the Times of Israel, Anne Joseph mentioned that “Shtum is vivid, raw, and unremitting in its portrayal of parenting a child with autism. It is a perfect example of how compelling the art-life continuum can be.” Joseph noted that “one of the novel’s most poignant characters is Ben’s father Georg, a Holocaust survivor, who is unable to talk to his son about his traumatic past and instead, relays his childhood experiences to the silent Jonah. The nature of the relationship is not only confessional, it illustrates the special intergenerational bond that can exist within families.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Evening Standard (London, England), March 24, 2016, Katie Law, “Former Journalist Jem Lester on Writing a Novel about Life with an Autistic Child.”
Financial Times, April 29, 2016, review of Shtum.
Guardian (London, England), March 16, 2016, Saskia Baron, review of Shtum; March 27, 2016, Hannah Beckerman, “Jem Lester: ‘Letting Your Son Go Aged 11, Knowing That He Will Never Live with You Again, Is Very Difficult.'”
Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2017, review of Shtum.
Publishers Weekly, March 13, 2017, review of Shtum, p. 56.
Times of Israel, May 13, 2016, Anne Joseph, review of Shtum.
Washington Post Book World, May 24, 2017, Eli Gottlieb, review of Shtum.
Weekend Edition Saturday, May 27, 2017, Scott Simon, “In Shtum, a Portrait of Autism Drawn from Real Life.”
ONLINE
BBC Website, http://www.bbc.co.uk/ (November 16, 2017), “Shtum by Jem Lester.”
Edinburgh International Book Festival Website, https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/ (November 16, 2017), “Jem Lester.”
Jewish News, http://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/ (November 13, 2017), “Why Keeping Shtum Speaks Volumes.”
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Fiction
Meet the author
Jem Lester: ‘Letting your son go aged 11, knowing that he will never live with you again, is very difficult’
The former journalist on being the father of an autistic boy, whose condition has informed his debut novel, Shtum
Jem Lester: ‘These kids are possibly the most vulnerable group we have because they have no guile whatsoever’
Jem Lester: ‘These kids are possibly the most vulnerable group we have because they have no guile whatsoever.’ Photograph: Catherine Ercilla
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Hannah Beckerman
Sunday 27 March 2016 05.00 EDT Last modified on Wednesday 20 September 2017 06.07 EDT
Jem Lester is a former journalist and teacher of English and media studies. He is father to a severely autistic son, the experience of which led to the writing of his debut novel, Shtum.
Shtum follows a family struggling to cope with a severely autistic, mute 11-year-old boy, and trying to secure appropriate care for him in a residential home. How much of that was autobiographical?
The tribunal story is pretty close. I went through a whole year of fighting our local authority for a place for my son, Jonah. So the story of the bureaucracy and the cost and the tribunal itself are pretty accurate.
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The parental couple in the book struggle to maintain their relationship. Does that echo your experience too?
No. Myself and my wife actually divorced when my son was very small – it was nothing to do with Jonah. But we maintained an incredibly good relationship, so while we weren’t married and weren’t living in the same house, we were still part of a twosome. I was still dealing with all of the heartache and I could see the strain and the effect it was having on her.
Did you ever contemplate writing a memoir rather than a novel? Why did you choose to fictionalise your experiences?
I’ve always had an aversion to misery memoirs. But I did want to be honest about what it’s like to live with, bring up and worship a profoundly autistic child, because there hasn’t been anything written about that in literature as far as I can see.
How does it feel having such a personal story in the public domain?
There’s both euphoria and sadness. When you have to let your son go at 11 years old and know that he’s never going to live with you again, it’s very, very difficult. There’s a grieving process involved in that. So I was writing the novel while also grieving. He’s made huge progress and he’s fabulous, but that’s it for me as far as my son’s concerned – I don’t have him around me any more on a daily basis.
In the last decade, having autism has almost become fashionable
There’s a lot of fiction that deals with three generations of women, but less so three generations of men. Do you think that’s an under-explored family dynamic in fiction?
Yes. I wanted to portray the male perspective because so often I think they’re silent, not just in literature but in life. Novels are snapshots and this is a snapshot about men.
There have been lots of autistic characters in fiction recently, but your portrayal is the polar opposite of the tortured genius persona. Is that a stereotype you were keen to challenge?
It was. When you say your child’s autistic, the first question you get asked is, “What’s their talent?” And it’s galling. In the last decade, having autism has almost become fashionable. There are celebrities who think it’s cool to say they’re a bit Aspergic. The visible autistic children are the ones at mainstream schools, who are living at home, and who have their difficulties, but there’s a huge tranche of children who aren’t like that.
Are you prepared for the possibility that you might become a figurehead for campaigns around autism?
I’d never describe myself as an expert on autism. I like to think I’m an expert on my son but that’s just one person. But do I think these kids are possibly the most vulnerable group we have because they have no guile whatsoever, they can’t really communicate and therefore they need taking care of.
I didn’t set out to write a campaigning novel but I’d like readers to be able to identify and see that these children need looking after for life. Because, actually, they’re always children. My son might reach 19 but he’s never going to be an adult.
Was the act of writing the novel a form of therapy for you?
No, quite the opposite. It wasn’t cathartic at all. Because my story continues. My son will be 16 soon and I’m already thinking about where he’s going to go when he’s 19. We’re going to have to go through the same process again to find him somewhere. So while the book’s finished, my story goes on. It’s still real life for me.
Shtum is published by Orion (£12.99). Click here to buy it for £10.39
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pansywoohooha 27 Mar 2016 4:48
36
37
Nice interview. Who are the celebrities who think it's cool to be aspergic? As a mother of an ASD child I don't find anyone thinks it's cool, they think we're exaggerating and making it up despite the teams of professionals ( about 20) verifying it 100% and my son's odd behavior ( their words.) I'm tired of it all.
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BowerBird79 pansywoohooha 27 Mar 2016 5:46
20
21
I'm sorry about your experience. I think you may be experiencimg the flipside of the same coin though. I used to live in the US where it extremely common for people to describe themselves as having OCD and/or aspergers (and other things too). When they say this they simulatenously dismiss the severity and life-changing status of these conditions and they try and glamourise and justify what is essentially their own bad behaviour.
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Owlyrics pansywoohooha 27 Mar 2016 17:36
11
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They only have to spend five minutes in a social situation to realise what the difficulties are. One autistic boy I know said to a lady "how are you so short and so old at the same time"?...going through peoples private drawers when on a visit, not understanding that the rules for one place or behaviour translate to other places and situations. It's constant work just trying to navigate them through to adult hood and a good sense of humour is a pre-requisite.
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ElinHanff 27 Mar 2016 6:16
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18
Good piece. I especially appreciate the point made about 'superpowers'. Like there needs to be a compensation for having a kid on the spectrum. I'm pretty sure that if I asked my son to draw me a detailed sketch of the Houses of Parliament he'd just say 'weird' and turn Top Gear up.
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ID7800889 ElinHanff 27 Mar 2016 8:51
16
17
I think it's a re-emergence of the old 'blind people have super-acute hearing' type myths. It's a comfort for people who don't have a disability to cling to. And of course, if people with disabilities have superpowers, there's no need for society at large to make any adjustments...
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Louveri ID7800889 27 Mar 2016 17:20
2
3
Also because there are some autistic savants out there - it's just not a common thing. There was this one guy I saw in a documentary who flew over a city in a helicopter, and then drew it all from memory. Most impressive.
Does make it harder when one does not have a savant talent as you get told it's part of the package so much!
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In 'Shtum,' A Portrait Of Autism Drawn From Real Life
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May 27, 20177:59 AM ET
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Shtum
Shtum
by Jem Lester
Hardcover, 313 pages |
purchase
Shtum is a Yiddish word that means silence. It's also the title of a novel that centers around three generations of men who get thrown together in a small space and can't talk to each other. Jonah, the little boy, has the best reason: He's profoundly autistic and can't speak. The story has a personal resonance for author Jem Lester, who says that while he bears no resemblance to the father in Shtum, Jonah's story has parallels to his own son. "A lot of the behaviors and the feelings that he inspires in the book, Jonah, are very very close to my feelings, because I couldn't really see the point of reinventing an autistic character when I had one so close to home."
Interview Highlights
On the portrayal of autistic people in popular culture
Things are improving, but certainly, down the years — I think my first introduction to autism, really, along with a lot of people's, was Dustin Hoffman's portrayal in Rain Man. And I think since then there has been this perception that an autistic child has some kind of special gift ... well, that's just a tiny tiny percentage of the thousands of millions of autistic people in the world. It doesn't in any way reflect the 30% of autistic people who have no language, and sit in a very very different place on what people like to describe as the autistic spectrum.
On Jonah
... there has been this perception that an autistic child has some kind of special gift ... well, that's just a tiny tiny percentage of the thousands of millions of autistic people in the world.
Jem Lester
Jonah is ten when we meet him in the book, with no language. And because of that, and because of the frustrations, he can suffer from bouts of self-harm — he will bite down on his hand, and has a big scar on the base of his thumb where he bites down through frustration. He is doubly incontinent, which means he's a ten-year-old that has to wear nappies during the day, and at night. And yet, there is such a level of innocence to him. There is no anger in his face. There is something pure about the way that he looks, and the sparkle in his eyes ...
He posesses, as a lot of autistic children do ... an almost superhuman strength. And so when he does have a meltdown he is virtually impossible to control. This is something I know very well. And people have asked me questions about, did you really need to provide that much detail? Was it really necessary? And I say, to be honest with you, I toned it down.
On what he's learned from his own son
My son Noah has taught me patience, compassion. He's taught me to understand the things in life that really should be important to everyone.
Jem Lester
My son Noah has taught me patience, compassion. He's taught me to understand the things in life that really should be important to everyone. And they're the kind of life lessons that you only really learn by being around people that have no axe to grind. So it's made me far more aware of just how many things in this world that have no bearing on my life and should not upset me or drive me mad, just are worthless and pointless and not worth thinking about. And on that basis I suppose, despite everything else, there is — I find a contentment in my own life that doesn't require me to search after goods and services, and all the other things that maybe at some point when I was younger, I'd have been trying to fight for. Now I understand, and that's through someone who's never actually told me that. He's never sat me down like a wise old man and given me the talk. He hasn't had to say anything, he's just had to be him. And I think that's a massive gift.
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Lifestyle › Books
Interview: former journalist Jem Lester on writing a novel about life with an autistic child
As the father of a profoundly autistic son, Jem Lester tells Katie Law why fighting to get the right care and education for him inspired him to write a novel
KATIE LAW
Thursday 24 March 2016 20:14
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Father and son: Jem Lester with Noah last year aged 14
Father and son: Jem Lester with Noah last year aged 14
On Tuesday night, viewers got to watch the first episode of The A Word, a new six-part BBC1 drama about autism featuring a couple struggling to come to terms with their
five-year-old son Joe’s behaviour. It’s the latest in a rash of programmes including The Autistic Gardener and Young, Autistic and Stagestruck
that promises to do for autism what Transparent has done for transgender issues and The Great British Bake Off has done for baking.
For Jem Lester, whose son Noah is profoundly autistic and has learning disabilities, this can do nothing but good. “It was a great depiction of the fear and subsequent denial that parents go through as their child’s ‘differences’ begin to become obvious,” he says. “From my perspective, it was interesting that it was the male characters who seemed to be more open and practical about Joe’s autism.
“That resonated with me deeply.
I could feel the tension and distrust gently ramp up as the adults had to face each other, while Joe — as you would expect — seemed oblivious to the maelstrom surrounding him. The lack of invitations to birthday parties and the social isolation for everyone was particularly moving, while the heartache and lack of control so many parents experience was sharply rendered, as more experts became involved and a change of school loomed.”
Lester knows a lot about experts and changing schools. Until Noah was 11 he went to Russet House, a “very good” specialist autism primary school in Enfield. Since birth Noah had been a late developer. “He didn’t really cry, he was the most perfect baby, he slept, but he never gave the kind of eye contact you’d expect and he showed no inclination to be potty-trained, ” says Lester, who is 49 and an English supply teacher.
At around two and a half, Noah stopped using the few words he had learned and continued to be doubly incontinent; he became violent and prone to self-harming, scratching his father and biting himself. He wouldn’t sit at a table to eat and stopped speaking. “It was impossible at home. I’d literally be chasing Noah the whole time but he wouldn’t use the toilet. Overnight he’d be in a nappy so by morning he’d need to be stripped and showered off. He’s very tactile, so without understanding what he was doing he would play with it.”
Lester scrolls through his smartphone to show me a photograph of his neck and chest covered in deep, bloody scratches after one of Noah’s attacks. “All of this is what you’re trying to survive on a daily basis.”
Today, as Noah approaches 16, although he still doesn’t speak he is out of nappies during the day, will eat at table and appears to be settled and happy. That’s because he’s at Prior’s Court, a specialist autism residential school in Berkshire with an intense “waking day” curriculum operated by a large, highly trained staff. He is there because Lester — and Noah’s mother, Kate Linke — took their local council, Enfield, to court and won the case. The fees are £200,000 a year, which can only be paid by the local authority, rather than parents.
“They [the local authority] had offered us a [local] secondary school called Durants. We went to see it and knew it wouldn’t cater to Noah. We said we wanted him to go to Prior’s Court.”
The Lesters hired specialist educational needs barrister Deborah Hay to fight their case, “who as far as I’m aware has never lost”. So began the lengthy, expensive process of compiling specialists’ reports. Shortly before the tribunal, in July 2011, the council offered Noah a place at an alternative residential school, Sybil Elgar in Ealing, run by the National Autistic Society. Its fees are £84,000 a year, less than half those at Prior’s Court.
This meant having to make a completely new case. “We went to see the school and while it was great for the kids they had there, these kids weren’t Noah,” says Lester. “It was an extraordinary time, exhausting, frustrating and incredibly stressful. I’d lost my mother suddenly. My father then got hideous terminal cancer and died. I was filled with anger.”
Lester is sure that the offer was at least in part based on financial criteria. “It’s such a huge amount, I’m not denying it and I don’t blame them for not wanting to pay the money but I do blame them and other local authorities for having no imagination or foresight or ability to plan.
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“If they ran these schools on a different model like some European ones, with extended provisions and without ludicrous six-week-long holidays, it could work a lot better than having someone like my family take them to tribunal to pay £200,000 a year for one child. They’re wasting money by just reacting and not being proactive; they don’t know how to provide for these children.”
The tribunal cost Lester and his family almost £40,000. “We were fortunate that we had the wherewithal to know what to do, who to hire and who to speak to. I’d sold my house so I had some money and we threw the kitchen sink at it. But there were other kids at Noah’s primary school who were just as bad ...,” Lester pauses and corrects himself, “no, that’s not the right word, as autistic as he was, who would have just rolled on to the next school. Their and their parents’ lives would have been awful.”
He is deeply dismayed at the recent report from Autistica that people with profound autism have an average life expectancy of 39. “We’re living in the 21st century and a certain section of society is suffering from a medieval life expectancy when there is no reason for it; it is horrendous, shocking news,” he says. Thankfully, Noah is not epileptic, epilepsy having been cited as one of the most common causes of premature death, along with suicide and lack of funding to provide proper long-term care.
Rather than write a memoir, Lester has turned his experience into a barely disguised novel. At its core is Noah’s story but it is also a compelling account of a father struggling with depression, alcoholism, his own father’s cancer and the break-up of his marriage.
“I wrote Shtum because I was always struck by the irony of Noah’s ability to tell me what he wanted despite having no language.”
Lester’s book also challenges the stereotype that all autistic children are “gifted” savants or mathematical geniuses. Noah has no such gifts and yet, says his father, he is “hilarious and brilliant”.
“Writing it certainly wasn’t a therapy and there were times when I found it painful. Bear in mind that the book finishes but the story behind it is our lives, which carry on. There are still huge obstacles ahead.”
The local authority will continue to fund Noah at Prior’s Court until he is 19, after which he becomes part of adult services. What then? “Noah will always need this level of care. God knows how he’ll get it.
“We haven’t even begun to look because I don’t know what’s out there in terms of schools. Prior’s Court can cater up to the age of 25 but that relies on the local authority agreeing to fund him.” It’s a battle Lester is prepared to fight. “I’ve heard that there are certain boroughs that are more progressive than others. We probably would have been better off if we’d been in the borough of Barnet, which we would have been if we’d been on the other side of the high street.
“London has a big issue because of the huge number of children they’re dealing with. These children are vulnerable and invisible and someone has to have a voice for them.” In Jem Lester, it seems they have found one. Noah, meanwhile, “is blissfully unaware that he is any different from anyone else and he couldn’t care less”.
Shtum is published on April 7 by Orion, £13.99, Buy now
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Shtum by Jem Lester
About the Book
When Ben and Emma fake a separation - a strategic decision to further Jonah's case in an upcoming tribunal - Ben and Jonah move in with Georg, Ben's elderly father.
In a small house in North London, three generations of men - one who can't talk; two who won't - are thrown together. As Ben battles single fatherhood, a string of well-meaning social workers and his own demons, he learns some difficult home truths.
Jonah, blissful in his innocence, becomes the prism through which all the complicated strands of personal identity, family history and misunderstanding are finally untangled.
About the Author
Jem Lester was a journalist for nine years and saw the Berlin Wall fall in 1989 - and though there, he denies personal responsibility.
He was also the last journalist to interview the legendary Fred Zinnemann, before the director died. He denies responsibility for that too.
He taught English and Media studies at secondary schools for nine years. Jem has two children, one of whom is profoundly autistic, and for them he accepts total responsibility. He lives in London with his partner and her two children
WHY I WROTE SHTUM
The day after I took my own autistic son to begin a new life at a wonderful residential school in the country, I began the MA in Novel Writing at City University. Having just emerged from a year-long battle with the powers that be to get him there, it seemed serendipitous. After all, it had been more than a decade since I’d truly had the time to concentrate on writing – such was the level of dedication he required.
To be frank, I was exhausted and emotionally raw and the last subject I wanted to write about was autism. However, after frustrating my tutor, Jonathan, with adamant refusals to do so, I went home for the weekend and pondered long and hard, and came up with a list of pros and cons.
When I returned to City the following week, my conclusions were the following:
1. It would have to be funny – because autistic children can be joyously hilarious. As an example, when my son was six or seven, he developed an aversion to my mum. If she entered a room he was in, he’d physically push her out and close the door after her!
2. Honest – I was truly fed up with being asked what my son’s ‘special talent’ was.
3. How would I feel if someone else wrote this story?
And then there was the ironic realisation – long held – that my son, with no language, was far better at communicating his wants and needs than I was.
After all the soul searching and prevaricating, it was number two that kept hammering at me. I wanted to be honest, even if revealing the brutality of the reality was counter-intuitive. Before my son was born, I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and loved it. Over the years since his birth, I have witnessed the elevation of autism – especially Asperger’s – to something almost fashionable. I’d heard autism used as excuses for shoddy behaviour, as an insult, and seen it adopted as a badge of honour. This was galling to me and, no doubt, to the countless other families dealing with the day-to-day misunderstandings and devastation it could bring. So I found myself in a challenging and (again counter-intuitively) responsible position – how could I write a novel that had a mute central character? How could I write a novel that was about autism yet, at the same time, dealt with so much more?
Sample the Book
Download a free extract of Shtum here
Download a free extract of Shtum here
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Festival dates:
11-27 August 2018
Home Look & Listen Writers
Jem Lester
Jem Lester
Real-life experiences inspired this humorous, heartbreaking debut novel.
Jem Lester was a journalist for nine years and saw the Berlin Wall fall in 1989 – and though there, he denies personal responsibility. Perhaps it is Lester’s experiences and talent as a journalist that had him turning to real life for inspiration for his debut novel, Shtum.
Ben Jewell has hit breaking point. His 10 year old son, Jonah, has never spoken. So when Ben and Jonah are forced to move in with Ben's elderly father, three generations of men – one who can't talk, two who won't – are thrown together. As Ben battles single fatherhood, a string of well-meaning social workers and his own demons, he learns some difficult home truths. Jonah, blissful in his ignorance, becomes the prism through which all the complicated strands of personal identity, family history and misunderstanding are finally untangled.
Based loosely on Lester’s own experiences with his severely autistic child, this book is a funny and heartbreaking story about families, forgiveness and finding a light in the darkest days.
Read Lester’s interview with the Guardian on being the father of an autistic boy.
Books by Jem Lester
Buy from our independent bookshops during the festival, or your preferred local book seller. Also available online below.
Shtum.
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Why keeping shtum speaks volumesWe speak to Jem Lester, whose debut novel offers a heartfelt glimpse into a family coping with autismBY FIONA LECKERMAN June 9, 2016, 3:21 pm Updated: June 21, 2016, 3:21 pm
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JEM LESTERFEATURESSHTUM
Within just a few months of being published, Jem Lester’s debut novel, Shtum, was attracting the attention of national media and garnering hundreds of positive reviews online.
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It’s the sort of success that first-time authors dream of and for the Southgate-born writer, an affirmation that his story, inspired by his own relationship with his autistic son, really resonates with readers.
During our meeting, Lester, who is nearing 50, even stops the interview half-way through to proudly show me the hardback version – a sign that the novel’s momentum is going strong.
Shtum revolves around the story of three generations, including Ben and Emma, and their severely autistic 10-year-old son Jonah, who cannot communicate.
It charts their struggle to fight for the right type of residential care to suit him, leading to a court battle. The events closely echo Lester’s own life and his relationship with Noah, who will soon turn 16 – and who, Lester tells me with a smile, now towers over him.
“What’s in the book is just the surface of what we had to deal with, but everything that happens with Jonah is the reality of having a child with Jonah’s autism. That’s what you deal with on a daily basis.”
Having worked as a journalist before becoming an English supply teacher, writing has been something that Lester has wanted to explore his entire life.
“I went through the whole tribunal process with Noah. It was draining and a very difficult few years and I kind of promised myself that when the tribunal was over, I was going to step off the carousel and do a master’s degree in creative writing.”
Lester was offered a place at City University, where his lecturer suggested he write about autism. But he admits being unsure at first.
“It was serendipitous, because the last thing I wanted to do was write about that. But I discussed it with many people and thought if I do this, it has to be honest and funny – because a lot of what my son does is hilarious.
“What I didn’t want to write was a single narrative, misery memoir about going through all the motions of the tribunal. It had to be about more than just autism.”
For the book, Lester draws upon his Jewish heritage and laughs when he admits: “I can write Jews. It’s not all I can write, but whilst my upbringing was fairly secular, I grew up around
Yiddish. It was a big part of my childhood living in a small Jewish community in Southgate.”
He also observes that he grew up at a time when the state of Israel had only just been formed and his parents’ generation were still struggling to come to terms with the Holocaust.
“We are now so used to the Holocaust being featured in every form of education with thousands of books published, but it wasn’t like that in the early 1970s. People didn’t really want to talk about it.”
The book reflects on this in the complex relationship shown between Ben and his father, Georg, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor, whom Lester describes as a “stoic individual”.
Georg’s back story is used as a vehicle to provide more details about Ben’s character.
“It’s all a story within a story to explain the way he is,” adds Lester. “I do believe in second generation survivor guilt and that stuff is still handed down. It is interesting to put those three generations together”.
Communication is a large theme within the book, between those who can speak to each other and those that remain literally “shtum”. While Ben has a difficult relationship with his father so, too, does he have issues with Emma and the pair find they cannot communicate with each other because of self-pity, anger and shameful thoughts.
Admitting some of the characters are not always likeable, Lester reflects that the family has been placed under strain, just as it was in real life. “I think the whole situation just turns people inside out,” he says.
Yet despite the heavier issues dealt with in the book, Shtum also provides a life-affirming and uplifting glimpse into the life of a family coping with autism.
Given the novel’s continuing popularity, it’s clear that readers are certainly not keeping quiet about Shtum.
• Shtum by Jem Lester is published by Orion, priced £7.99 and available now
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Right: Jem Lester with his son Noah, also pictured right, as a baby
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Print Marked Items
Lester, Jem: SHTUM
Kirkus Reviews.
(Mar. 1, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Lester, Jem SHTUM Overlook (Adult Fiction) $26.95 5, 9 ISBN: 978-1-4683-1472-4
An issue-centered novel from former British journalist Lester showcases severe autism from the point of view of a
devoted, deeply flawed father. Ten-year-old Jonah cannot speak, is not toilet-trained, and has emotionally exhausted his
parents: lawyer Emma, the primary breadwinner, and Ben, who supposedly manages his father's Georg's catering
equipment business, although he spends much of his workday at the pub. In desperation, Emma and Ben apply to place
Jonah in a residential school offering the care he needs. When the local school district, required to cover the extremely
high tuition, cites Jonah's "loving family" as a reason to reject his enrollment at the school (although American readers
may be amazed at how much help the British government does offer), Emma suggests that she and Ben pretend to
separate before appealing the ruling. Ben reluctantly agrees. He and Jonah move in with Georg, while Emma remains
behind in their home. Though she has carefully organized a plan for Ben to follow in order to get Jonah transferred to
the residential school, she becomes increasingly unavailable to talk to Ben or see Jonah and even advises Ben to
borrow the money for legal costs from his father since she has tied up their funds in an investment. Ben and Georg, a
gruff refugee from Hungary, have a difficult relationship. Ben's mother left when he was 12, and Ben resents that his
emotionally withholding father openly adores Jonah and tells him stories about his Jewish childhood in Hungary that
he's never shared with Ben himself. Then Georg is diagnosed with cancer. As Ben cares for both Jonah and Georg
while carrying out Emma's school-appeal blueprint, he must finally face the two long-avoided issues that have
concerned his friends and Lester's readers all along: Ben's dependence on booze and his misreading of so much about
his relationships with Emma and Georg. Lester's tendency toward preachy platitudes--"without loving myself, I cannot
hope to love another"--undercuts the power of his heart-wrenching characters and plot.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Lester, Jem: SHTUM." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Mar. 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA482911828&it=r&asid=2133554a3c065a88525c3bf6ae94d60b.
Accessed 12 Nov. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A482911828
11/12/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1510548657951 2/2
Shtum
Publishers Weekly.
264.11 (Mar. 13, 2017): p56.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Shtum
Jem Lester. Overlook, $26.95 (320p) ISBN 9781-4683-1472-4
Lester's debut, based on his experience of raising a child with autism, is an emotional and uplifting tale of love and
sacrifice. Ben and Emma Jewell want the best for their son, Jonah, and they believe that includes placing him in a
special residential school for kids with autism. However, obtaining approval for that placement will not be easy. Emma
thinks Jonah will have the best chance of getting into the school if they fake a separation, so she convinces Ben to
move in with his father, Georg--a transition that proves more challenging than anyone imagined. With Emma largely
out of the picture, Ben is faced with being a single father to a 10-year-old son who is profoundly autistic, largely
uncommunicative, and physically aggressive, while living with a father from whom he is largely estranged. With all
these difficulties, Ben must also convince the admissions tribunal that the residential school is the most appropriate
placement for Jonah. Complex characters and wonderful descriptions combine to create an honest yet blunt portrayal of
the trials and triumphs associated with raising a child with autism. Agent: Laura Williams, Peters, Fraser, and Dunlop.
(May)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Shtum." Publishers Weekly, 13 Mar. 2017, p. 56. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA485971609&it=r&asid=ffb870b2d297cbf7eafb8337316bc66f.
Accessed 12 Nov. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A485971609
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Shtum by Jem Lester review – a vivid debut about life with an autistic child
This exhilarating roller coaster ride portrays the love, guilt, exhaustion and rage felt by the parents of a boy with profound learning disabilities
Jem Lester
Darkly comic … Jem Lester
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Saskia Baron
Wednesday 16 March 2016 10.00 EDT Last modified on Wednesday 20 September 2017 06.08 EDT
‘What’s going to happen when he’s older? When he’s too big for even me to handle? Will he kill someone? Maim them? What happens when I’m dead? Where will he go … ?” Ben, the narrator of this darkly comic debut from Jem Lester, is brooding about the future of his much-loved and profoundly autistic 11-year-old son. Jonah has no speech, and his only means of communicating his needs is by selecting pictures on laminated cards.
When he is stressed, frightened or frustrated Jonah bites his hands until they bleed. He hurts himself and other people, even those he loves the most. He is doubly incontinent. Shtum traces the long war his parents fight to get local authority funding for an eye-wateringly expensive specialist residential school. It is their only hope for Jonah’s future happiness as he has made no progress in primary school.
This is not the kind of autism familiar from Rain Man and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, where the central characters’ obsessions, sensory idiosyncracies and social difficulties can be understood with a little sympathy and imagination. Jonah’s inner world is a baffling mystery even to those who observe him most closely. The 25%-30% of autistic people who never develop language rarely make it into fiction or on to our screens.
Jonah is no mere cipher but a very real boy: he adores twirling feathers, hot bubble baths and Marmite on toast. He is unpredictable, has no sense of danger and needs constant vigilance. His parents ricochet between love, guilt, exhaustion and rage. As the novel opens, Ben’s wife Emma suggests Ben moves out with Jonah on the basis that being a single father will make their son’s need for a residential school more urgent.
Shtum, the Yiddish word for keeping silent or hiding secrets, is the perfect title for a novel in which even those who can speak do not share their thoughts with each other. Ben is a copywriter whose alcoholism lost him his job, now slumming it in his father’s catering supply business. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he is forced to move back in with his father, Georg, a Holocaust survivor who has never made any bones about how much he dislikes his son’s self-pity and inability to see a job through to the end.
It makes for an uneasy household. Georg’s tenderness towards his wordless autistic grandson is both welcome and resented; he tells Jonah bedtime stories of his youth escaping the Nazis, tales never shared with his own son. Meanwhile, Emma, a seemingly successful lawyer, is keeping her own counsel. She doesn’t answer calls, leaving her estranged husband filled with suspicion and jealousy. At first a shadowy, unsympathetic figure, she becomes fully realised as the novel develops.
Lester doesn’t spare his main character: Ben isn’t an idealised hero battling for his disabled son’s rights. His failings are laid out in plain sight. He is a man-boy who has never quite grown up. At one point he reflects: “I’m wearing a costume, shuffling around in oversized shoes, playing the role of an adult.” This is the literary territory of Tony Parsons and Nick Hornby, infused with the Jewish humour of Howard Jacobson and Shalom Auslander.
The novel’s text is broken up with officious letters from authorities, crammed with Orwellian doublespeak. It is also peppered with ironically deployed icons of the type Jonah uses to communicate. At times Lester’s ambitious cinematic crosscutting between showdowns with officialdom and stories from the past puts a strain on the narrative flow. Overall, though, this is an impressive novel that gives a very accurate portrayal of the struggles some families of autistic children endure, while taking the reader on an exhilarating roller coaster ride between pathos, comedy and anger.
• To order Shtum for £10.39 (RRP £12.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
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‘Shtum’, by Jem Lester
The moving story of a family’s fight for their autistic child’s future
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APRIL 29, 2016 Review by Isabel Berwick 0 comments
Readers may remember the phenomenon that was For the Love of Ann, a father’s memoir about bringing up an autistic daughter in the 1950s, when understanding and support for families was almost totally lacking. It became a word-of-mouth hit in the 1970s and it brought autism, then a mysterious and often undiagnosed condition, to public attention.
Four decades later, Jem Lester, the father of a profoundly autistic teenager, has written Shtum, an updated but no less harrowing and angry novel about what it means to be the parent of a child who may never speak, nor be able to go to bed without a nappy. Lester is unsentimental on parenthood that does not follow the usual script; he watches friends’ children “developing quickly, dreading the inevitable day, when — like a burn-up at the traffic lights — my son remains in neutral as they roar off into the distance”.
Shtum is Lester’s debut, and although classed as fiction, the veneer is often thin. Lester has talked in interviews about his family’s battle to get their son a funded place in a specialist residential secondary school (cost to the local authority: £200,000 per year), spending a fortune on a tribunal fighting the authority’s assertion that the boy’s needs would be met at a (far cheaper) local school.
This fictionalised version of this fight offers outsiders a glimpse into the frustration of dealing with officialdom as Ben Jewell, the book’s narrator, fights to secure the best future for 11-year-old Jonah.
Shtum is named for, and about, silence — most obviously that of Jonah, who spoke as a small child but has lost his words now, and babbles sweetly: “If he had a speaking voice it would be like a mesmeric peal of church bells.” Jonah lives in a self-contained world, finding delight in dancing naked in the garden and in watching shiny ornaments. He is also easily angered, and Ben has the bruises to prove it.
Ben is barely coping, self-medicating while running the family catering business (badly) and attempting to avoid getting into a situation where his wife Emma could conceive a second child. Emma is the capable, sensible one. She deals with all the official correspondence and meetings about Jonah. Then she announces a lengthy work trip to Hong Kong and forces Ben to take charge of the tribunal case.
Emma suggests that it would give them a better chance of winning the tribunal if they appear to have separated. Ben and Jonah move in with his father, Georg Jewell, a charismatic, funny and practical man who fled the Nazis in Hungary as a child. The layers of silence — about Georg’s own family, about his marriage to Ben’s mother, and his own health — are explored in moving, bleakly funny detail.
Seeing Emma through Ben’s eyes — she leaves him in sole charge of Jonah for months — makes her seem harsh and odd. Why leave her child like that? It’s the underwritten, unsatisfying aspect of the book. She does eventually reappear with an explanation, but this is really the story of the men in the family. At its heart are the things they need to say to each other but often keep “shtum” about — and the child who says nothing, but communicates his needs eloquently.
Shtum, by Jem Lester, Orion, RRP£12.99, 320 pages
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Books
In ‘Shtum,’ parents wreck their home to find a better one for their autistic son
By Eli Gottlieb May 24
To write a novel about someone who has severe autism is to grapple with a paradox. After all, severe autism repels language, turns it chaotic or, in the case of autistic mutism, simply absorbs it wholesale, as a black hole does light. This hasn’t, of course, kept fiction writers from regularly using autistic and developmentally disabled narrators and protagonists in their work.
(Overlook)
In “Shtum,” a moving, darkly funny new novel by British journalist Jem Lester, who is the father of a severely autistic child, the narrator is a somewhat dissolute 30-something man named Benjamin Jewell. The main subject of the novel, however, is Benjamin’s 10-year-old son, Jonah, who is autistic and mute. “His mind,” the father says memorably of Jonah, “is like a dictionary with the pages glued together.”
As heart-rending as mutism in severe autism is, it often arrives with the particularly cruel backstory of a child who speaks somewhat normally in the first year or two of life and then gradually, mysteriously relinquishes language until disappearing entirely into silence. As Ben observes, “Jonah was born and it was fluffy clouds and sleepless nights. But as he reached three, the fairy tale revealed itself an impostor — the red hood fell away to show the Big Bad Wolf of autism.”
“Shtum” opens on that crossroads moment that afflicts all parents of children with severe autism: where and how to place the child in a residential facility. No matter the good intentions of the parents or how self-sacrificing their desire to keep their child at home, adolescence, with its onrush of agitating hormones, tends to make home care an impossibility. In the case of Jonah, he’s still in diapers at age 10, and on an average day, he paints the walls with his feces, burgles the fridge for food that he then flings around the house, bites his father and takes the majority of his rage out on himself.
Yet as disabled as Jonah is, he may not, it turns out, be autistic enough. He may not, in other words, qualify for the luxurious, garden-like Highgrove Manor School, which costs a staggering 200,000 pounds a year, all of it provided by the state. He may have to remain “in borough” and make do with the local, far less impressive and less costly Maureen Mitchell Secondary School. As his mother, Emma, says poignantly, “We’re being punished because we love and care for him and he’s not as good at autism as he could be.” To which Ben responds, “He’ll never play autism for England.”
Author Jem Lester. (Catherine Ercilla)
Although it is typically mothers who do the heavy lifting in families with disabled children, in “Shtum,” it is Ben, a perennially underemployed alcoholic, who is the devoted and central parent. Emma loves their child no less, but as a lawyer and a highly organized careerist, she is simply less available.
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Their response to the quandary of where to place their child is to pretend to divorce, in the belief that Jonah will be more readily taken by the expensive facility if his home life seems to depend on a single parent (why this would convince a judge to make such a choice is never made exactly clear). To that end, Ben and Jonah move out of their home and take up with Ben’s elderly father. The portrait of the father, a cantankerous yet loving Hungarian Jewish refugee from World War II, is one of the surprise pleasures of the book. And the midsection of the novel, which describes the way the sham divorce slowly becomes a real divorce while the grandfather and Jonah bond without words, is deeply affecting.
Overall, however, “Shtum” (the word is Yiddish for “silence”) is a bit of a mixed bag. The author elects to tell the story in first person present tense, a choice that adds a choppy, staccato feel to things and also underlines some of the narrative discontinuities that creep into the text along the way. The dialogue can occasionally feel a bit canned, as if lifted from a lesser sitcom, and the author overplays the scenes of his narrator as a feckless, self-loathing alcoholic, endlessly recycling glimpses of him drunk, drying out and drunk again.
What “Shtum” does do well, and memorably, is describe the ferocity of attachment a parent feels toward a disabled child. It unsentimentally lays out the terrain such a parent must negotiate both at home and institutionally, and paints a vivid portrait of a family under siege by this most mysterious of contemporary maladies. To its credit, “Shtum” proposes humor as a balm in even the darkest of situations. If paying detailed attention to one’s characters is a form of love, it is also a powerful, and even remarkable, love letter to a child.
Eli Gottlieb is the author, most recently, of the novel “Best Boy.”
SHTUM
By Jem Lester
Overlook. 320 pp. $26.95
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Novel explores how autism can teach a family to communicateThe Times of Israel
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'AFTER A WHILE YOU CAN’T IMAGINE THE CHILD BEING ANY OTHER WAY'
Novel explores how autism can teach a family to communicate
Centered around a nonverbal autistic son and Holocaust survivor grandfather, Jem Lester's semi-autobiographical debut 'Shtum' wins hearts and acclaim
By ANNE JOSEPH
13 May 2016, 9:42 pm
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Cover detail from 'Shtum' by Jem Lester, a new novel about a family coping and thriving with the challenges of autism (courtesy)
Cover detail from 'Shtum' by Jem Lester, a new novel about a family coping and thriving with the challenges of autism (courtesy)
LONDON — “The only thing predictable about Jonah is his unpredictability,” says Ben, the narrator in Jem Lester’s debut novel “Shtum.” As he cautiously monitors Jonah, his profoundly autistic son, sitting in the back of a car Ben knows even a mere detour has the potential to cause Jonah anxiety and Ben “untold stress.”
“Shtum” centers around ten-year-old Jonah, who is non-verbal, doubly incontinent and requires constant attention. When frightened, anxious or frustrated he can harm himself and others — including those who love and care for him. His parents, Ben and Emma, are struggling to cope.
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A specialist residential school would provide the best help for Jonah’s needs, but Ben and Emma are forced to launch a legal battle against their municipality, which is reticent to grant the considerable funds.
At the heart of the narrative is communication — or rather the lack of it — between three generations of men: Ben, his father Georg, and Jonah.
When Ben and Jonah are forced to move in with Georg, the stresses intensify and Jonah, blissfully innocent, becomes the prism through which all the complicated familial strands of identity, history, and misunderstanding are viewed.
Reviewers described “Shtum” as “an unforgettable first novel,” and “an exhilarating roller coaster ride between pathos, comedy, and anger.”
Author Jem Lester holds his son Noah as a baby. Like the novel's Jonah character, Noah is on the autistic spectrum and requires special care (courtesy)
Jem Lester holds his son Noah as a baby. Like the novel’s Jonah character, Noah is on the autistic spectrum and requires special care (courtesy)
It has been included in The Independent newspaper’s “10 Best Book Club Reads for 2016,” and Lester has been referred to as “one to watch” more than once.
Lester, a former journalist and English teacher, cannot quite believe the level of attention and accolade that his book has received. Engaging and easy going, he says over a drink in a busy central London café that even the pre-release review proof copies had to be reprinted several times.
Publishing rights have been sold to numerous countries, including Israel, where Sendik Books will be publishing the Hebrew version.
“Shtum” is vivid, raw and unremitting in its portrayal of parenting a child with autism. It is a perfect example of how compelling the art-life continuum can be — Lester’s 16-year-old son, Noah, is severely autistic.
A story close to the heart
Although “Shtum” is a work of fiction, many of the events, scenes, and emotions that appear in the book are based on personal experiences.
“The thread of the story regarding the tribunal, the bureaucracy and the machinations leading up to that is pretty close,” he explains. “And Jonah as a character probably started off in my head as my son, but at some point during the writing, he just became himself.”
There are other parallels. Much of Jonah’s behavior is based on Noah — who also doesn’t speak — and certain aspects of Ben’s character echo his own, although not as much as some would imagine, he says.
‘I thought that if I can make it funny and honest, then I will do it’
“This idea of his not finishing anything is me and I think that I have always had great difficulty — and probably still do — with communicating my needs, wants and feelings. The irony is that I always found I could do it on paper but I couldn’t ever confront it.”
But, he says, Ben’s relationship with his wife is completely fictional. And, unlike Ben, he never felt the kind of frustration for his son that Ben exhibits surrounding Jonah.
Lester had known about his son’s autism from a very early age and, “I was so in love with him it made no difference. And then after a while, you can’t imagine the child being any other way.”
Behind the scenes
“Shtum” was written while Lester was studying for a Masters degree in creative writing. Yet writing about autism had not been Lester’s initial intention. Prior to beginning the course, he, his ex-wife — with whom he had separated when Noah was still very young — and her husband won a tribunal claim for Noah after a year-long fight against the local municipality.
Author Jem Lester has received a warm reception to his debut novel 'Shtum,' but still faces daily challenges raising son Noah (Catherine Ercilla)
Author Jem Lester has received a warm reception to his debut novel ‘Shtum,’ but still faces daily challenges raising son Noah (Catherine Ercilla)
“I’d lost both my parents in the previous three years. It was tough. Then I started the Masters the very next day [after taking Noah to his new residential school]. At that point I was so raw from it that I thought, ‘No, I’m too close.’”
Lester’s course director encouraged him otherwise and once Lester had talked about the idea with a few people he trusted, he changed his mind.
“I thought that if I can make it funny — my inclination in my writing is always to do that — and honest, then I will do it,” Lester says.
The family in “Shtum” is Jewish but “it doesn’t resemble my own,” he says. One of the novel’s most poignant characters is Ben’s father Georg, a Holocaust survivor, who is unable to talk to his son about his traumatic past and instead, relays his childhood experiences to the silent Jonah.
The nature of the relationship is not only confessional, it illustrates the special intergenerational bond that can exist within families.
“It wasn’t a book until I found him,” Lester says. But the process of writing “Shtum” gave Lester no catharsis whatsoever — “Not even remotely. It was really difficult.” And revising the book became an onerous task.
“That was the hardest bit. Not that it required major surgery but simply because I was going over and over and reading through the same [painful] stuff. It took me a year when it should have really only taken two or three months.”
Lester came up with the idea of the book’s apt Yiddish title – the word for silent or non-communicative. His course tutor, who is also Jewish, liked it but told him not to be surprised if it got changed in case the word or its significance was not understood. Fortunately it has not been an issue.
“All the way down the line, they’ve loved the title,” Lester says.
A wider context
In a coincidence of autism narratives, the release of “Shtum” comes at the same time as the screening of UK BBC drama series “The A Word,” which is an adaptation of Israel’s award winning Keshet International series “Yellow Peppers.”
Cover of 'Shtum' by Jem Lester, the author's debut novel which was released on April 7th by Orion (courtesy)
Cover of ‘Shtum’ by Jem Lester. The author’s debut novel was released on April 7 by Orion (courtesy)
It focuses on a family’s painful — and often humorous — journey of denial and introspection after their five-year-old son is diagnosed with autism. In Lester’s view, bringing such a story to a wider audience can only be a good thing.
But he is keen to challenge the popular “genius” stereotype — that a person with autism has a special talent or gift, such as the protagonists depicted in “Rain Man” or “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.”
A staggering 25-30% of adults and children with autism have no language, he says — a statistic that he admits shocked him when he found out. These characters rarely seem to have been represented in literature or film.
“I think that’s why people have cottoned onto my book, because it’s very different in its portrayal from anything else [on the subject].”
Although the characters in Lester’s fictional tale achieve some resolution, of course the reality for Lester is different. The issues are ongoing. Once his son Noah reaches 19, he says, he will be deemed an adult despite still presenting as a child and his care provision will have to change. Lester is only too aware of the potential challenges, both financial and emotional, that this will bring.
Before he leaves to get to his next interview, Lester says that he is still managing to teach, but only in a supply role because of his book commitments.
“One day at the BBC and one day being abused in the classroom,” he says laughing. “That brings you back to earth!”
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POORLY MINTEDPOORLY MINTED
US knocks Romania for ‘anti-Semitic’ coin
Special issue features central bank governor Mihail Manoilescu, who was foreign minister when Romania was allied with Nazi Germany
By AP
13 May 2016, 9:40 pm 2
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A Romanian coin bearing the likenesses of former governors of the National Bank of Romania from left) Ion I. Câmpineanu, Mihail Manoilescu and Ion I. Lapedatu. The coin is one of a series of three in gold, bronze and silver. (Romanian National Bank)
A Romanian coin bearing the likenesses of former governors of the National Bank of Romania from left) Ion I. Câmpineanu, Mihail Manoilescu and Ion I. Lapedatu. The coin is one of a series of three in gold, bronze and silver. (Romanian National Bank)
BUCHAREST, Romania — The US Embassy in Romania on Friday criticized the country’s central bank for releasing a coin bearing the image of a former bank governor who it said actively promoted anti-Semitism.
The embassy called the bank’s decision to honor Mihail Manoilescu, the former governor of the National Bank of Romania, “disappointing.” In a statement, it said he was “an active promoter of and contributor to fascist ideology and anti-Semitic sentiment.”
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Manoilescu was foreign minister in 1940, when Romania was allied with Nazi Germany. A supporter of the fascist Iron Guard, he signed a diktat under which Romania lost large swaths of territory to Hungary.
It said in a statement that the coin was part of a series minted in mid-April honoring former bank governors and noted that Manoilescu had been governor in 1931, a year of economic crisis.
A Romanian coin bearing the likenesses of former governors of the National Bank of Romania from left) Ion I. Câmpineanu, Mihail Manoilescu and Ion I. Lapedatu. The coin is one of a series of three in gold, bronze and silver. (Romanian National Bank)
A Romanian coin bearing the likenesses of former governors of the National Bank of Romania from left) Ion I. Câmpineanu, Mihail Manoilescu and Ion I. Lapedatu. The coin is one of a series of three in gold, bronze and silver. (Romanian National Bank)
It said that the coins it minted were not intended to offend any community or “send a message with an offensive, xenophobic or discriminatory nature.”
It added it was examining the criticism and would establish working procedures to “avoid potential regrettable situations in the future.”
Manoilescu died in a Communist prison in 1950.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press.
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NOVEMBER 13, 2017
CURRENT TOP STORIES
A member of a UN chemical weapons investigation team takes samples from sand near Damascus, Syria, August 28, 2013. (AP/United Media Office of Arbeen)
In tacit rebuke of Russia, Israel backs UN report on Syria chemical weapons use
By TOI STAFF
Foreign Ministry says watchdog findings 'unequivocally' prove Assad used poison gas, calls on international community to step up efforts against regime
Israel says US-Russia ceasefire deal in Syria does not meet demands
US, Russia reach Syria agreement to distance Iran from Golan Heights — reports
Iran building a permanent military base in Syria — report
Demonstrators burn flares and wave Polish flags during the annual march to commemorate Poland's National Independence Day in Warsaw on November 11, 2017. (AFP PHOTO / JANEK SKARZYNSKI)
‘Jews out of Poland’ chants heard at far-right Independence Day march
By TOI STAFF and AFP
Israel's Foreign Ministry calls on Warsaw to "take action against the organizers" of nationalist parade marking 99 years of the country's independence
Former Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri gives his first televised interview on November 12, 2017, eight days after announcing his resignation. (Future TV via AP)
TV interview with Lebanon PM fuels rumors of Saudi coercion
By AP
Full of odd moments, Saad Hariri's first television appearance since shock resignation failed to present message of calm or control
Emerging after shock resignation, Lebanon’s Hariri says he will return ‘soon’
Lebanese PM’s movement ‘restricted’ in Saudi Arabia, says president
AnalysisOld rivalries give way to new threats, as Iran-Saudi ‘Cold War’ heats up
People stand in the street after feeling aftershocks from an earthquake in Baghdad, Iraq, November 12, 2017. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Israel rattled as 7.2-magnitude earthquake strikes northeast Iraq
By TOI STAFF and AGENCIES
Powerful earthquake on Iran-Iraq border kills more than 140
US President Donald Trump watching the lighting of memorial candles during the annual Holocaust Day of Remembrance ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda, April 25, 2017. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images via JTA)
Trump to host White House Hanukkah party
By ERIC CORTELLESSA
US president will continue annual tradition started under former president George W. Bush in 2001
Moroccans celebrate November 11, 2017 in Marrakech following Morocco's victory over Ivory Coast in their FIFA 2018 World Cup Africa Qualifier to participate the FIFA 2018 World Cup. (AFP PHOTO / Fadel SENNA)
In first, 4 Arab countries qualify for FIFA World Cup Finals
By TOI STAFF
Morocco win 2-0 and Tunisia cling on to 0-0 draw allowing both to join Egypt and Saudi Arabia at Russia 2018
Israeli soccer star named China’s player of the year
Soccer star released from hospital after ball to chest nearly kills him
In Morocco, Israeli judoka permitted to display his country’s name
Activists from the group Reservists on Duty, in t-shirts reading 'Defending freedom from hate,' counter protest in front of Boycott, Divestment and Sanction display on a college campus. (Courtesy Reservists on Duty)
ISRAEL ADVOCACY
‘Rock stars’ of the IDF: Israeli soldiers go on tour to educate the masses
By CATHRYN J. PRINCE
Groups seek to put a human face on the Jewish state while countering misconceptions and anti-Israel activists
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas meets with Saudi King Salman in Riyadh on November 7, 2017. (Thaer Ghanaim/Wafa)
Saudis told Abbas to accept Trump peace plan or resign — report
By SUE SURKES
During his surprise summons to Riyadh last week, Palestinian Authority chief was also ordered to avoid Iran, cut ties with Hezbollah, according to Channel 10 TV
Participants march against sexual assault and harassment at the #MeToo March in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles on November 12, 2017. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Hundreds in Hollywood march against sexual harassment
By LINDSEY BAHR
Taking the #MeToo campaign from the internet to the streets, demonstrators target Academy Awards venue with signs, chants and speeches from Harvey Weinstein accusers
Likud MK accuses senior broadcaster of sexual misconduct
Gal Gadot said refusing ‘Wonder Woman’ sequel over Brett Ratner involvement
Producer of ‘Arrow,’ ‘The Flash’ suspended over sexual misconduct claims
Israel Securities Authority chairman Shmuel Hauser at a Finance Committee meeting in the Knesset on September 11, 2017. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)
EXCLUSIVE
Cryptocurrencies may be the next big Israeli scam, top regulator warns
By SIMONA WEINGLASS
Shmuel Hauser also says Israel Securities Authority cannot get binary options victims’ money back, but may help with legal fees; it is up to police to arrest the fraudsters
Illustrative: A man measures his belly. (Ljupco/ Stock via Getty images)
More than half of Israelis overweight, OECD report finds
By TOI STAFF
A 4,000-year-old Assyrian tablet is the first evidence of surrogacy in infertility. (Istanbul Archaeology Museum)
4,000-year-old prenup pushes for surrogacy in case of infertility
By AMANDA BORSCHEL-DAN
MORE HEADLINES
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem, November 12, 2017. (AFP/POOL/ABIR SULTAN)
Netanyahu warns terror groups: Don’t even think about it
By TOI STAFF
Members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group attend the funeral of fellow terrorists killed in an Israeli operation to blow up a tunnel stretching from the Gaza Strip into Israel in central Gaza, on October 31, 2017. (AFP/Thomas Coex)
Islamic Jihad: Israeli ‘threats’ against our leaders ‘declaration of war’
By DOV LIEBER
Head of US European Command Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti meets with IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot in the military's Tel Aviv headquarters, as part of an official visit, on March 6, 2017. (Israel Defense Forces)
IDF chief makes secret trip to Brussels to meet NATO head
By JUDAH ARI GROSS
National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat. (Amos Ben Gerschom/GPO)
Ministers approve new national security adviser
By TOI STAFF
Jewish National Fund workers protesting a bill that would transfer $570 million to state coffers in return for the organization retaining tax exempt status, Jerusalem, November 12, 2017. (KKL-JNF)
JNF heads lobby against bill demanding $570 million payment to state
By SUE SURKES
Bones lie on the ground in an area recently retaken from the Islamic State group, at an abandoned base near the northern town of Hawija, Iraq, November 11, 2017. (Kirkuk Governor's Office via AP)
New mass graves found in Iraq containing up to 400 bodies
By AP
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (L) and her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, in 2011. (CC BY-SA, Wikimedia)
After Johnson flub, husband of woman jailed in Iran presses UK government
By AP
Rabbi David Harison is brought for a hearing at the Jerusalem District Court on December 18, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Charges dropped against rabbi accused of raping 14-year-old
By TOI STAFF
Illustrative photo of a post office sorting center, Tel Aviv February 22, 2010. (Yossi Zeliger/Flash 90)
Amid internet shopping frenzy, burglars break into main post office
By STUART WINER
In this July 2016 photo, Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen speaks to members of the media at his compound, in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/Chris Post)
Turkey denies report of plan to kidnap cleric Gulen from US
By ZEYNEP BILGINSOY
Illustrative photo of a young Palestinian boy seen walking sheep in the Jordan Valley, May 14, 2015. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)
IDF issues evacuation order to Jordan Valley Palestinian shepherd community
By STUART WINER
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wife Sara Netanyahu is seen at the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem on October 13, 2016. (Marc Israel Sellem/Pool/Flash90)
Sara Netanyahu ex-employee: She screamed at me, ‘You’re a lump of nothing’
By TOI STAFF and RAOUL WOOTLIFF
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An earthquake victim is brought to Sulaimaniyah Hospital on November 12, 2017, in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq. (AFP Photo/ Shwan Mohammed)
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FULL COVERAGE
LEBANON
Former Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri gives his first televised interview on November 12, 2017, eight days after announcing his resignation. (Future TV via AP)
TV interview with Lebanon PM fuels rumors of Saudi coercion
By AP
Lebanese watch an interview with Lebanon's resigned prime minister Saad Hariri at a coffee shop in Beirut, on November 12, 2017.
(AFP/ ANWAR AMRO)
Emerging after shock resignation, Lebanon’s Hariri says he will return ‘soon’
By TOI STAFF and AGENCIES
Workers hang a poster of outgoing Prime Minister Saad Hariri with Arabic words that read, "We are all Saad," on a seaside street in Beirut, Lebanon, November 9, 2017. (AP/ Hussein Malla)
Lebanese PM’s movement ‘restricted’ in Saudi Arabia, says president
By AFP
SEE ALL
THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
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TALES OF THE TIMES
Garry Shrum, a music memorabilia specialist at Heritage Auctions, displays an acoustic guitar that belonged to Bob Dylan in Dallas, on October 13, 2017. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
TANGLED UP IN GREEN
Bob Dylan guitar sells for nearly $400,000
By AP
The sabra-shaped tower designed by Czech architect Martin Rajnis rises out of the lush gardens of Jerusalem's Hansen House (Courtesy Hansen House)
PRICKLY PAIR
Czech-designed cactus-shaped tower rises in Jerusalem
By JESSICA STEINBERG
A scene from 'Shadowland 2,' the Pilobolus production being performed November 13-17 in Herzliya (Courtesy Pilobolus)
OUT OF THE SHADOWS
Pilobolus brings robots and dancing ostriches to Herzliya
By JESSICA STEINBERG
Ivanka Trump speaks at a fireside chat on tax reform with at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, on November 5, 2017. (AFP PHOTO / FREDERIC J,. BROWN)
'CRIMINALIZING' POVERTY?
Indian city bans beggars ahead of visit by Ivanka Trump
By AFP
Albert Camus (Public Domain, US Library of Congress/United Press International/Wikimedia Commons)
BURNING WITH DESIRE
Camus letters show secret passion for love of his life
By ALAIN JEAN-ROBERT
Charismatic solo artist Morrissey, originally of The Smiths (Courtesy Orit Pnini)
THIS CHARMING MAN
Singer Morrissey: Those who criticize Israel are ‘jealous’
By GABE FRIEDMAN
Mila Kunis at the Regency Village Theatre in Westwood, Calif., Oct. 20, 2017. (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)
'WOULDN’T EVEN OPEN DOOR'
Mila Kunis says local refused to let her see childhood home in Ukraine
By JTA
In this October 26, 2017 photo, Donia Jessop holds her mayoral campaign sign outside her store in Colorado City, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
FROM UTAH, WITH LOVE
After a century, polygamous sect loses control over Utah town
By BRADY MCCOMBS
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte walks past honor guards as he arrives at Manila international airport in Manila on May 24, 2017.
(AFP/Noel Celis)
MANILA VICE
Philippines’ Duterte says he once stabbed a person to death
By AFP
A mural of musician Leonard Cohen seen on a building in downtown Montreal, November 7, 2017. (AFP/Marc Braibant)
YOU WANT IT DARKER
With virtual choir, quirky exhibit reimagines Leonard Cohen
By SHAUN TANDON
Screen capture from video of spider webs covering trees along the Soreq Creek near Jerusalem, November 2017. (YouTube)
WEAVING THEIR MARK
Spiders turn Jerusalem area creek into haunted wonderland
By STUART WINER
American actor Will Smith is seen outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem on November 9, 2017. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.
BACK IN BLACK
Will Smith ‘chills’ at the Western Wall
By TOI STAFF
In this Jan. 15, 2015 file photo, the new Airbus A350 of Qatar Airways coming from Doha, Qatar, approaches the gate at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany. (AP/Michael Probst-file)
TURBULENT MARRIAGE
Wife discovers husband’s affair mid-flight, forcing emergency landing
By AFP
Arabella Kushner sings a song in Chinese for Chinese President Xi Jinping on November 8, 2017. (Screen capture/YouTube)
CHARM OFFENSIVE
Trump uses granddaughter’s Mandarin skills to wow Chinese
By AP
Former US president Barack Obama arrives for Cook County jury duty at the Daley Center on November 8, 2017, in Chicago, Illinois (Joshua Lott/Getty Images/AFP)
HOLD COURT
Obama answers call for jury duty in Chicago
By DON BABWIN
A rabbit in the Polish health ministry video urging citizens to have more children -- like the rabbits do (YouTube screenshot)
HOP TO IT!
Polish government asks citizens to breed like rabbits
By AP
American comedian Jerry Seinfeld performs in Tel Aviv on December 19, 2015. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)
HELLOOOOO
Seinfeld heading back to Israel for more shows
By TOI STAFF
Some items from the estate of Oskar Schindler's wife Emilie up for auction on December 8, 2017. (Lawrences Auctioneers)
UNDER THE HAMMER
‘Thank you’ letters to Schindler up for auction
By TOI STAFF
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, second left, and Tourism Minister Yariv Levin, right, seen with Israel's 3,000,000th visitor this year, Ioana Isac, second right, and her partner, Mihai Georgescu from Romania, at the Tower of David Museum in the Old City of Jerusalem, November 7, 2017. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)
MAKE-UP ARTIST'S VIP TOUR
Historic visitor number 3 million gets private Jerusalem tour from Netanyahu
By STUART WINER
Illustrative image of a macaw parrot sitting on a branch. (PARNTAWAN/iStock via Getty images)
JAIL BIRD
Would-be parrot thief ends up in the cage
By TOI STAFF
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