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Mazornet's Jewish Book Club
Jewish Identity: Two Selections
Contributed by: Roza M.
Jewish identity was, is, and will
continue to be a topic that engages, preoccupies, disturbs, and even
haunts many of us. Our "Jewishness" determines for better or worse
who we are, what we are, and often where we physically choose to be.
Two major influences that continually form, shape, and fashion our
Jewish psyche, since early in the twentieth century, are the Eastern
European shtetl and ghetto cultures, and Israel - the land, and the
people.
This month's selections recommended for your perusal deal with the
topic of one's Jewish identity here and in the Jewish homeland. In
the first chosen work, "How
I came Into My Inheritance," Dorothy Gallagher gives the
reader a witty account, intimate, fierce, and hilarious, of her
Jewish heritage, and her family's attempts to make sense of their
new life in America.
Our second selection, "If
A Place Can Make You Cry: Dispatches From an Anxious State,"
is an important documentary, and should be read in these days of
confusion, sorrow, and diminished hope for peace in the land many of
us hold dear. Daniel Gordis, an American from Los Angeles, who moved
to Jerusalem in 1998 with his wife and three kids, puts a face on
daily life in Israel. Gordis immediately began sending out e-mails
about his and his family's new life to friends and family abroad.
These missives, passionate, thoughtful, beautifully written, and
informative, are collected here in a book form. He cuts through the
rhetoric and stridency we so often hear, and tells the story of a
family trying to reconcile their love of Israel and their right to
be there with the complicated issues that arise from the situation.
Gordis, a director of the Mandel Foundation's Jerusalem Fellows
program, and formerly the dean of the Zeigler School of Rabbinic
Studies at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, makes no secret
of his political views, left leaning and liberal. Surprisingly, his
depiction of the life in terror stricken land, and his analysis of
the different attitudes of the left and right wing idealists in
Israel is balanced and thought provoking. Most touching are Gordis'
conveyance of his internal struggle between the inherent need to
"protect" his family and his Zionist ideals.
Mazornet's Book Club - Home Page
Have you read "If
A Place Can Make You Cry: Dispatches From an Anxious State," and would like to comment?
Send Your thoughts to: Gordis@mazornet.com.
Tell us if you want your comments and (or without) your email
posted.
Have you read "How
I came Into My Inheritance" and would like to comment?
Send Your thoughts to: inheritance@mazornet.com.
Tell us if you want your comments and (or without) your email
posted.
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Click Here to "If
A Place Can Make You Cry: Dispatches From an Anxious State"
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