32 | JANUARY 7 • 2021

T

en years ago, Susan Shapiro began
grappling with a problem she could
not dismiss. Her thoroughly trusted
therapist and confidante of 15 years had
lied to her, and she wondered how she
could ever forgive him.
“If somebody says, ‘I’m
sorry,’ I can forgive anybody
anything,” she explained.
“But if somebody refuses to
acknowledge that they did
something wrong, I have a
really hard time with that.”
Shapiro’s way of struggling through the
issue of forgiveness fell right in line with
the way she usually reacts to uncomfort-
able situations in her life. She wrote a
book, her 13th overall and her ninth non-
fiction project. Not dwelling on the issue
simply as she experienced it, the author
reached out to people with similar prob-
lems and consulted professionals.
All of that comes across in The
Forgiveness Tour: How to Find the Perfect
Apology (Skyhorse/Simon & Schuster).
The book will be introduced Jan. 14,
two days after its official release, during
Temple Israel Zoom programming. It will
be discussed by Shapiro, Rabbi Jennifer
Kaluzny and two Oakland County res-
idents, Gary Weinstein and Emanuel
Mandel, whose opposite attitudes toward
forgiveness are described in the author’s
latest work.
While Weinstein forgave the drunk
driver who killed his wife and children,
Mandel did not forgive Holocaust perpe-
trators, believing he found success, in part,
by living a life of spite.
“I think I was able to finish the book in
a way that will do good in the world,” said
Shapiro, also a magazine contributor who

has been teaching writing and marketing
techniques for 30 years at the New School
in New York as well as in private classes
and lessons. “I felt I was sharing important
wisdom about forgiveness.
“I interviewed some really brilliant peo-
ple — all kinds of [religious leaders] about
the subject of forgiveness, and they had
such brilliant information. I also inter-
viewed 13 people who had very intense
stories about forgiveness after being
wronged in very extreme ways.”
As she learned the reasoning behind dif-
ferent points of view, Shapiro probed the
idea of atonement.
“Jewish people really have to apologize
and ask for forgiveness,” she said after
talking with both Rabbis Joseph Krakoff
and Jennifer Kaluzny. “If a sin is not
atoned, it is not forgiven.”
Shapiro, who attended the Roeper
School and Congregation Shaarey Zedek
while growing up in Michigan, graduated
from the University of Michigan with a
major in English and credit for the humor
magazine Michigas. Although she chose
her late father’s alma mater, New York
University, for graduate school, she asserts
that the results of her education have not
always pleased family.
“I consider myself the author of 13
books my family hates,” Shapiro quipped
and noted an exception. “One, The Bosnia
List, was co-authored with the survivor
of an ethnic cleansing campaign in the
Balkan war. That came out 10 years ago,
and that was the one my father, Dr. Jack
Shapiro, went crazy over [in a good way].
“When he was gung-ho about getting
copies of that book, I thought it was about
the history because it told the story of
Yugoslavia and the whole war. Then, I

realized it was because I was telling the
story of someone else’s family and not
ours.
“I dedicated Forgiveness to my dad, and
it actually wound up being more about
my father than I expected it to be. I was
mourning him while I was writing it.”
Shapiro, who has visited Michigan
many times for book introductions, will
be speaking digitally from her home in
New York, where she lives with her hus-
band, Charlie Rubin, a television writer
and teacher. She had considered herself
a “technophobe” but succeeded with the
Zoom world at the encouragement of her
mom, Mickey Shapiro of West Bloomfield.
“My brand of teaching really works
online because it’s the goal to have each
student publish a great piece by the end
of the class, and that’s been done so many
times,” said Shapiro, who delves into tech-
niques with her book The Byline Bible: Get
Published in Five Weeks.
“Classes have gone from 20 students to
60 international students. I’ve been able to
get the best editors and agents all over the
country because it doesn’t matter if they’re
in New York to Zoom in.”

Zoom in to Susan Shapiro and others discussing for-

giveness at 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 14. To register for the

free event, go to temple-israel.org/event/NeedToRead.

Susan Shapiro launches her new book
in a Temple Israel Zoom program.

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The
Forgiveness Tour

ARTS&LIFE
BOOKS

Susan

Shapiro