Award-winning local author Lisa Barr never could have imagined just how “eerily relevant” her fourth book, Goddess of Warsaw , would be today when she began researching it more than two years ago. And yet, here we are, confronting the worst Jew-hatred since the end of World War II in the wake of the most brutal massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

Barr has always been “a proud Jewish author” and has never shied away from supporting Israel. Her writing career spans four novels and many years working as a journalist, including seven years as an editor at The Jerusalem Post . Goddessof Warsaw combines both these threads from Barr’s professions, bringing together her journalist’s eye for details and the real-world events of World War II with the drama of fiction. “I gravitate toward art, and every one of my books also has a news hook to them from my journalism background,” she said.

She also stepped boldly into the fray of being a Jewish writer in a climate that is now openly hostile to Jewish and Israeli authors, performers, and artists of all types.