A solid guide to Judaism for reluctant believers.
One woman's rediscovery of her Jewish roots.
Hurwitz, the former head speechwriter for Michelle Obama, describes her journey into Judaism and offers advice for those looking at exploring the faith. Having basically abandoned the practice of Judaism after her bat mitzvah, the author became curious about the faith again later in her adulthood, and her initial inquiries turned into a full-blown quest to understand the religion of her heritage. Though still an infrequent worshiper, Hurwitz has immersed herself in the study of Judaism and the practice of its ethics. In this debut book, she is "essentially trying to write the book I wish I'd had five years ago,” a basic guide to what Judaism stands for, how believers live out their faith, and what sets the Jewish religion apart. She concentrates primarily on how Jews live moral lives, as opposed to what Jews believe, which she feels is secondary. Her approach is thoroughly modern and questioning, and the author, though recognizing that some Jews take their faith literally, assumes that readers will not believe in every aspect of Jewish tradition or theology. In fact, she admits that in exploring her faith, she often feared being labeled a "religious fanatic." In her recollection of a prayer exercise at a retreat, Hurwitz writes, "you can take the girl out of Washington, D.C., but Washington, D.C., is still in there, reminding the girl of how weird she's going to look and asking her what the people around her will think." These worries about the opinions of her peers seem to stymie the author's own spiritual journey, a fact apparent in her text if not evident to her personally. Still, Hurwitz provides a good introduction to basic tenets of Judaism, and her book will resonate with other secular Jews looking to regain a sense of their Jewish heritage.
A solid guide to Judaism for reluctant believers.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-51071-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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