Amazing fan letter — Tammar Stein

I love hearing from you! When I write my books, I do it thinking of my readers, hoping my words will move them or inspire them, entertain them and make them forget about the world for a bit. After the book is written, edited, and published, it’s out there, being read, being reacted to, but unless someone reaches out to share their expirence with me, I don’t actually know whether I succeeded or not.

Which is why I love getting letters. This letter is one of my all-time favorites and I just had to share it with you. (Posted with permission.)

Hi,

My name is Ayelet and I live in Israel. I found The Six-Day Hero one day in a book store two years ago in Rehovot. I started reading it on the bus home and forty minutes later I was at home, still reading. I was 20 at the time and close to finishing my army service (or maybe I already finished, I don’t remember) and when I finished I finally understood what true Zionism and Patriotism felt like here.

You see, my family made Aliyah in 2013 from the United States (my parents and my family are all from Israel), and despite joining a youth group in high school and knowing the history and the stories and the culture and walking the nature-trails, it just didn’t click for me. I even served in the old city of Jerusalem, watching over the cameras (the comments in the book about all the streets looking the same is SO TRUE) and occasionally I could feel the pride, but it just felt like work with people, you know?

But this book. Something did it for me.

It was so immersive and alive, and maybe the simpler English helped too. I could feel the culture because it’s still here. The clash of cultures at the post office, the ridiculously unfunny jokes in the Bazooka gum wrappers, the cats. I felt so connected to everything.

After I finished the book I promised myself to read it every Israeli Remembrance Day to remember how it feels and how important it is to be in this country and to be proud of this country.

So thank you for writing this book. I surely won’t forget it any time soon.