40 years. Which was part of building that momentum. I think we now need to look to the other pharmacy chains, wall walgreens has more stores than cvs, and we need to go after the high fat, high salt, high sugar foods that cvs sells. They said they believed they were a Healthcare Institution and was incompatable with their business strategy. Well, thats true, then promoting diabetes is also imcompatible and we ought to be doing that, and i think it speaks to good Scientific Evidence that the ubiquity of unhealthy products contributes to overconsumption, and if you have fewer alcohol outlets are fewer tobacco outlets or few are food outlets that people consume less, and it shows what a movement can do and its a good sign. With that i think we need to end and maybe people can could back and consume a little more wine and cheese and we can maybe talk for a few more minutes. [applause] [inaudible] [inaudible] discussion youre watching booktv on croons 2. 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend. Youre watching booktv. Next, Phyllis Scheffler talks about her marriage to an afghan man and her experiences living in afghanistan during the early 1960s. Once in afghanistan, miss chesler, a jew, became part of the hardem and learned what it was like to live as an afghan woman under fundamental lists. This is a little over an hour. Okay so i have to for the reasons of the camera i cant look directly at you. I have to look this way. You can look okay. I once lived in a harem in afghanistan, and i love my opening sentence. It reminds me of i had a farm in africa from the book out of africa. And we had romances with whole continentses, entire cultures. We had grand adventures that transcended any single relationship, and such adventures can be costly or sometimes fatal. Yes, i once lived in a harem in afghanistan. But i nearly died there, too. A harem simply means the womens quarters. Its forbidding to all men who are not relatives. If you cant leave without permission, or without a male escort, you are in a harem and living in purda. Why did i write this book now . Afghan and its people seem to have followed me right into the future and into the west. Headscarves, which i dont oppose, and face masks, and burqas, body bags, which i do oppose, but here in america, on the streets, and in the headlines, afghanistan has also landed in the west and the west is still deployed in afghanistan, and, no, i dont think we should be there. Afghanistan is the country where i was once held hostage, eerily it is the same country that sheltered bin laden, where he hatched his 9 11 diabolical plot, and after saudi arabia and sudan compiled, exiled him and now thele world is held hostage to this al qaeda style. This was an eerie coincidence to me. Mid a vaccine temperature has lasted for adventure lasted for more than 50 years when my afghan husband fled just before the soviets invaded he fled and came to america and knocked on my door, and i have been criticized for ever speaking to him again. But americans and jews have a long tradition of hospitality to those in exile, to immigrants who come tower shores. So i didnt turn away from him and from his second wife and his thenyoung children, and i recount some of our conversations that took place between 1980 and 2012 in the book, and they serve as a conversation between east and west. Perhaps like so many other jewish dreamers, i yearned for Mystical Union between ihshak and ishmael, and i kept company with him for two and a half years. I was 18 but i wasnt a complete fool and i thought i knew him and we never once discussed religion or afghanistan and prided ourselves on being bohemian and free thinkers, beat knicks, artistes. He never, ever prepared me for what my life or his life would be like in kabul, and he never told me that his father had three wives and 21 children, and that i would be expected to live with my motherinlaw, and that women still were wearing burqas, even though there was reform underway. Real reform, or i would bed to convert to islam. He never mentioned this. Never came up. When we landed in kabul, indeed they an official smoothly took away my president passport. I said, wait a minute. Thats my passport. I was told, dont worry. I never saw the passport again and that becomes the interchapter in the book, because at that moment i became a citizen of no country, with no rights, and the property of a very long and powerful polygamist muslim family, and i thought that this adventure would be romantic, we would travel throughout all of central asia. I found myself instead transported back to the tenth century with no passport back to the future. I lived gender long before the taliban dime tame to power, and i understand that may have turned me into who i became. Was it all bad . Oh, no. But such adventure does not come cheaply. A westerner does not travel to the wild east without risking disintend tear, malaria, parasites, hepatitis. I had two of those. Without risking being kidnapped and held for ransom or sold at auction. Many western, women adventurers, adventureers flourish, for example in 1846. Harriet martin, the british born author visit the arab middle east and writes about the harems of cairo. They pitied us that we had to go about traveling and appearing in the streets without being properly taken care of. That is watched. They think us strangely neglected and being left so free, and both of their spy system and imprisonment as tokens of the standing theyre held. Cannot be a woman of them all who is not dwarfed and withered in mind and soul. Ironically, the 19th century harem dwellers in cairo and istanbul could not believe how confined the western visitors were in all their hoops and coresets and bustles. They were cool. We were all straightlayingsed and sweating, and the harem women examined the dressing, the dresses and the corsets, and there i was a first generation an american kid, living in a city 6,000 feet above sea level, which had one crossroads of the known world in a pa lay shall home, spokesperson surrounded by awesome snowcapped mountains and where paganism, hinduism, judaism, had once flourished. Yet buddhism, before the arab invasion resulted in the fourth conversion of the Afghan People to islam, like so many others around the globe, afghans were once buddhists. Pagans, hindus, and jews lived among them, certainly from the ninth century on, possibly much earlier than that. I will never forget the swarm kindness of my Young Brothers in law and who understood how unhappy i was and the female servants were shy and sweet and entirely without malice and they were also sleeping on the floor with no heat and their wages was were pitiful and they walked 247. And i found this as shacking as nearly Everything Else and the Afghan People the men, because most male adventurers only get to meet male afghans. Only people. They have a great ceremonial genius and a wild sense of humor. Theyre really very funny. I have been told that may fatherinlaw helped found the modern Banking System of the country, and its true, and all the major importexport companies, these enterprises and equivalent banking functions had been totally in the hands of the hindus and the jews of the country who overnight were impoverished bay royal edict in the late 1920s, early 1930s, and i only discovered that shocking fact as i was researching this book. And my husband is as much a dream as i. He brought a Jewish American infidel bride intellectual bride, back to a country that had made alliances with german nazis and given nazis a safe haven after the Second World War in retrospect, i am irrationallyes stranged i once thought such a country was exotic and beautiful, which alas it is. Then there was the matter of the burqa. I was terrified when i first saw women literally huddled at the back of a bus, i thought they were laundry that was moving. I had run away. I wanted to see the city and i got on a bus, very gayly colored bus, very whimsical design, and indeed they were women in burqas, and they had a handbag, baby, shopping bag underneath. All the men on the bus looked at me because i was naked faced. They really stared at me. So i got off the bus very quickly and i began to understand why my afghan family were so afraid of my wild western ways so that what we would take for granted, getting up in the morning, going out, taking a walk on the street, totally forbidden. Dangerous. The public space is not meant for women. And my afghan family thought that my reaction to the burqa was an overreaction because they viewed it as a normal thing. They viewed my reaction against it as abnormal. As inappropriate. And i now know that the koran mandates modesty for both men and wimp it does not mandate women wear clause very phone pick, Isolation Chamber body bags. Thats not the koran, and activists and concerned with health this is a very terrifying garment to be to find yourself in or to be on the street with someone who is in one and theres nothing you can do to rescue her. And im not talking about not talk because its not a problem. You can see somebodys face, their features, you can converse with them. They can go about their business in the west. And in the 20th century, women were nakedfaced in twice in afghanistan by royal edict, and in egypt and in lebanon and turkey and iran, persia, north africa, and to varying degrees in many arab middle east countries, lebanon,. Iraq, syria, and certainly egypt. Now theyre covered in darkness. Now the pendulum has swung back to the seventh century, and it may be coming our way if we dont know what to recognize about it. In my lifetime, afghanistan hag turned into a Margaret Attwood novel. Given the increasing persecution and subordination of muslim women and dissidentses i decided to connect my own five months in purda to the afghan women today and i hope my story will serve to bring muslim feminists and dissidents closer to what is presumably an american feminism. Now, the of 9 11 changed the direction that this book would take. How could i write about afghanistan and about muslim women and muslim women intellectuals and muslim homosexuals, without also writing about ihaweddist terrorism and the war against muslim civilians. The perpetual religious war between sunni and shia, and then thereafter, against infidels, and against both israel and the west. Now, my views are shared by the muslim and exmuslim dissidents and feminists with whom i work. We are all antiislamists. Or antishariaistsle. We re pose totalitarianism, terrorism, gender and religious apartheid, and support individual gay and womens rights, freedom of speech, and above all, freedom of religion, which means separation of religion and state. I have now published three studies and im working on a fourth one, and they were published in middle east quarterly, and also submitted affidavits based on my research for those in flight from being who have come looking for asylum in america. So really why did i go to afghanistan . What could possibly have been going on . Well, why else . To be able to tell you about it now, at this moment in history. It was kismet. Written in the stars america destiny. Id like to end this minilecture with a brief reading from the book. This is a fabulous book store. I love it. What if anything do i owe afghanistan . A country where i once lived and where i nearly died. I was there. It remains a part of me. I am now a tiny part of the countrys history. I will never forget my time there. But natural splendor that id a least was this is an accounting of sorts, a young Jewish American woman once came to this wonderous is aatic country and fled hairem life and finally uncovered the history of what happened to the jews of afghanistan and of islam, and she has told this story in order to redeem her soul. A young Jewish American woman once loved a young muslim afghan man, and although it could not work out, they continued talking to each other down through the decades of their lives. Abdul not his real name a misogyny, deceiver, dreamer, now man living out his days in exile, turned out to be one of my muses, as did afghanistan itself. I have turned my brief sojourn and my scent livelong interest in the islamic world in a writers treasure. I experience what it was like to live with people who were permanently afraid of what other people might think, even more so than in small mind town u. S. A. Writing this book has also put me in touch with the long buried tenderness i still feel for abdul. Especially now that he has become the character in these pages. We remain connected in our own unspoken ways. Thank you. [applause] im ready for questions or answers. You said that you were antisharia. I think one of the thing is wonder is, there is any reconciliation between sharia and i dont know how to phrase the question western world or more moderate views . There are two answers. One answer is that islam has not yet had reform. Its not yet diversified into protestantism or many branches of belief, and that may never happen and may be underway now. So, the islam of the seventh century and those who wish to live with crossamputation, caning, flogging if youre showing a wisp of hair, that interpretation of sharia is we cannot live with that in the modern west, where we have individual rights and a belief in universal human rights, which i have. Its not possible. Luckily we live in a country where we have american law, and i know that there is some concern that maybe there will be creeping sharia law, making its way, snakelike, into american law. Im not sure that is possible. I dont see American Courts saying, okay, take that woman out and her family can absolutely kill her because she doesnt want to mary her first cousin. I dont see that happening here. There are many terrible things happening here but its not happening through the American Court system. I dont see by the way though, the koa ran does not man mandate tribal killings the behind dozen only do it in america. When they dom america or europe they dont bring that custom with them, but muslims do. But we dont believe in female genital utilize, which is an african practice, but many muslim does that, especially in egypt. They tight in america. Its under the radar. Its happening here as olog my now here polygamy here even though we outlawed. So to answer your very important question is, if were vigilant, if we educate ourselves, make it our business to know what is happening, then we have american remedies, western remedies, to deal with barbarism. What was your question . I wanted to know what the role of your parents were when you took off to afghanistan. Oh. What they were thinking, their 18yearold daughter i dont know. I was in two years in college. Married him when i was 18 and a half, and my mother knew i was a rebel child. I was i had joined a very left Zionist Group in youth, and went totally against the orthodox judaism of my family. I when the rabbi thundered at me you cant join that godless communist outfit, i joined one which was to the left and i was only ten or 11. My mother knew she had a wild child on her hands, from early on. And they were very quiet. Very my mother knew i would be back. She didnt she didnt understand i could be trapped and get sick and nobody would care and i could have been buried in a muslim seminary some farflung locale on planet earth, which could happen very easily, and i began hearing about honor killings when i was there. That was nose the word used. And to this day if you bring when i would bring this up to my afghan husband in america, in the 1990s in the early 21st 21st century, he would say, never heard of it. And then id say, well, have you heard about this case, very high profile case in canada, where a father, a mother, biological mother, and a biological son, conspired to kill the first wife who was not the biological mother of anyone, and three biological daughters that are all afghan. It happened in canada. The highlights of my research, my moment, was when i met the prosecutor, and he told me that they had relied on my research in their prosecution, but abdul kareem had never heard of this or heard of any of the other highprofile honor killing cases that go on in america. That is because it would be shameful to admit this. So, when something is shameful or when you think an infidel would be critical and would get one up on you, over on your, against you, mock you, look down on you, you say i never heard of it and it doesnt exist. Its like the way we handle insist. Didnt happen. He didnt do it. We didnt know about it. It was her fault. It was long time ago. Doesnt matter now. So people cover their shame. Denial and also victimizing the truthtellers. Yes . As result of your experience, what has happened to your relationship with judaism . Well, initially she is asking how is this experience affecting my relationship to judaism. For a very long time there was no connection. I began to note antisemitism, which became the subject of a book of mine in three 2003. I noted in america and europe and i did jewish feminist ritual through the 1970s, through the 1980s. It was only in 1988, when i was in jerusalem for a conference on womens empowerment, when my tourist partner had the idea to go and pray for the first time ever, just women in the womens section at the western wall, and that was a grand enough moment, and i was asked to open the torah for the women to read from the old testament. And i thought, oh, what i want to do is study torah. So i have been doing that. Since 1989. With much joy and ive published interpretations of torah. But that took an enormous feminist ferment, great coincidence, such a grand moment and we struggle, it is 26 years later and we have not yet quite won that right, and things are happening, which is the women of the world story. Women of the wall story so if you grow up in brooklyn, in the early 1940s, girls did not have a future in religion at that time, so i left. I didnt see a future for myself, even though i was known as the smartest, quote, boy in the hebrew class. Its interesting. I believed very strongly in working with religious muslims and i persuaded other muslims they have to if we are going to make a resistance movement, then we need all of us, and that the right to practice a religion is as important as the right not to be coerced into practicing that religion. Right . So, i dont know if it is a direct i would say when i discovered the shameful history of the jews of islam, when we thought that only european holocaust era or programs in the west is what troubled the jews, when i began to look into the history of the ceaseless movement against infidels, certainly against christians bigtime, but the muslim middle east all the jews had been chased out, and the question of whether a jewish presence well be allowed in the sta