A fun interview today on NPR Nevada’s “State of Nevada” program. Lots of questions about Crypto-Jews in the Southwest, a topic I write about in Am I a Jew? Thanks to everyone at the stage for having me on, and for those who want to listen, here’s a link to the interview: http://knprtalk.org/archive/
Attention people who, like my wife, tend to say that I’m not as funny as a I think I am: read this review in Jewish Journal. An example:
Ross is a writer comfortable with humor, much of it grounded in self-deprecation. Writing effective humor is a rare gift. Devout Jews might not appreciate the author’s light touch, as when he shares what he calls an “old joke, which goes “The history of Judaism can be summed up in nine words: They tried to kill us. We won. Let’s eat.”
Who’s funny now? Me!
Will be on NPR’s “Tell Me More with Michel Martin” today to discuss “Am I a Jew?” and what to do for the high holidays (like I know). Very excited. Apparently I have a face for radio! In NYC, it will air during the 2-3pm broadcast on 820am, and during the 9-10pm show on 93.9fm.
UPDATE: Here’a link to the interview. And here’s a link to the transcript (which is kinda fancy, I think). Many thanks to Michel Martin, the host, whose questions were smart and fun.
Penguin, the mothership of my publisher, Hudson Street, asked me to file a blog post in advance of the upcoming Jewish New Year. Given my predilections, I suppose it’s no surprise it included, among other things: Maimonides, perplexity, meditations on the curvature of ram horns, serial qualifications, and bad jokes. A taste:
I’m not a fan of this term, by the way. I have faith in a great many things—death, taxes, the futility of man and the Mets, the rain in Spain falling primarily in the plain—but “faith,” strikes me as an indeterminant word used in service of a vague state.
Better instead to say only that we believe in the God in which we believe, in the way we believe in Him (or Her or They or Buddha or the wind or a circle of stones in England), be the godhead’s proper name or pronoun capped or no; that we locate or adopt or adhere to our belief in the manner that seems to us most sincere or reasonable or likely or unlikely or inarguable or scientific or hereditary or miraculous or brave or foolhardy; that that we do so in cooperation with or resistance to or in dismissal of different or competing beliefs and modes of beliefs and motivations for belief—and leave it that.
Perhaps we should go with faith at that.
I had an interesting reaction to something that I posted on the book’s Facebook page. A woman who I don’t believe I’ve ever met in person, but whom I interact with regularly online left a comment about a reading I have scheduled at the Pacific Standard bar in Brooklyn, on the fateful date of September 26th.
Pacific Standard happens to be one of my favorite local bars, and not only because they cater to the beer snob in me. They also take an active role in supporting the literary scene in Brooklyn, with regular readings, including a monthly series hosted by my other project, the parenting website DadWagon (“Proudly profane”–that’s us, according to the New Yorker), which is, in fact, hosting this reading (for those interested, by the way, we’ll be GIVING AWAY FREE BEERS TO THE FIRST 36 PEOPLE TO SHOW UP that night–plus an extra freebie to whoever can figure out why we chose that number).
Anyway, the 26th happens to be Yom Kippur, the day when good Jews skip bagels, forgo coffee, and even head to temple to atone for their sins. It was this scheduling quirk that my Facebook friend noticed and posted about: “I see that one of your readings is sept 26th,” she wrote. “Did you realize that date is YOM KIPUR!!! WHAT KIND OF JEW DOES A READING ON YOMKIPUR.”
I didn’t. And, basically, this seems the sort of statement anyone reading my book could put forth to me in just about every context. What kind of Jew…add your complaint. Now, I’m not speaking ill of this person, whose is very nice and completely right–it’s insensitive to schedule a reading for a book about Judaism on a day of religious significance.
In my defense, I scheduled the reading way in advance, quite without checking a calendar, Jewish or Roman. And in a case of post-factual alibis, I have decided it’s no big deal. The reading isn’t set to start until 7pm that night, and in all likelihood, won’t get going until 7:30pm, after the introductions and whatnot. According to Chabad.org, which has an online candle-lighting and holiday times device on its website, Yom Kippur ends at 7:26pm. I should be good, and if any observant Jews want to come on the late side, it’s no skin off my nose. Either way, I won’t raise a glass (or take a bite) until 7:26pm.
Yes, I know this was cheesy, and yes, I know I’m supposed to be exclusively supportive of my local independent bookseller, but screw it–the book was just out the day before and I headed to the Barnes and Noble down the street to see if I could find it.
Here was my plan: I would walk in and look for it; if I didn’t immediately spot it on the shelf, I would head to customer service and make an innocent title inquiry; if said inquiry yielded no joy for Am I a Jew?, I would inquire as to why, given the dramatic demand for the work, it wasn’t to be found in the store; at no time would it be necessary to mention that I was the author of the work–what for?
The book was not stocked at the Barnes and Noble, but when I launched into my routine at the desk, the manager interrupted me, pointed to several large stacks of the book, and said “We were just getting it out. You want one?”
Rather than buying them all, I told them who I was, and several minutes later found myself signing them for sale. At one point, the manager told me I could stop signing if I got tired.
I told her, “I haven’t been doing this nearly long enough to get tired of it.”
Some early praise from the Forward for Am I a Jew?. I think the writer, Josh Rolnick, was fair and perhaps even liked the book–which I’ll take, even if he does describe me as “earnest”. Reviews are a nervous-making business for the author of a first book, so I’m happily knocking on wood as I share the review.
Here’s my favorite bit:
In a way, all of Ross’s travels and seeking lead to a confrontation with his mother that exists at the book’s emotional core. In a powerfully written scene, he finally puts all of his questions to his mother, point blank. Her answers are stunning, uncomfortable and sad. They provide an honest portrait of Jewish fears (“I did not want my kids to be lampshades”) and assumptions (“everybody hates the Jews”) that we ignore at our peril. And they remind us that our own tussles with and choices about Judaism are perhaps more heavily influenced by our parents than we might like to admit. At one point, Ross asks his mother — given that his book is about her lie — why she told all her friends he was writing it. “Because I’m proud of you,” she says. And, suddenly, just as we were about to write her off, just as we were ready to label her eccentric or cowardly or odd, there she is — the Jewish mother we all recognize.
In what can officially be considered my first reading from Am I a Jew? (I was roped into service when one of our scheduled participants cancelled), I read part of a chapter during the “DadWagon Presents: Loinfruit, Meltdowns, and Weeknight Drinking” reading series. My colleague, Matt Gross, was kind enough to record it and do some internet magic to make it into a podcast, which you can listen to here. It’s from the chapter entitled, “Jewish Mother.” Enjoy!
That's what my book cover looks like
In every creative work, there are things that you produce and that you like that you will have eventually to do away with. The short passage below survived many of my drafts of the book, only to be cut in the final revisions. I took it out for several reasons:
First, my editor didn’t like it.
Second, while the sentiments expressed here were true to me, I thought they were a bit harsh in expression. I didn’t necessarily need to be likable–a meaningless and weak idea in nonfiction writing–but I didn’t see any reason to go out of my way to be arrogant when there was no need.
But I still like it, and what better use for this blog than to indulge myself in its publication?
Excised from the introductory chapter, “Hidden Jew”:
Before I can begin, I feelt that I must insist on the personal aspect of the title question. Am I a Jew? Not you. Not your neighbor, not the old fellow snoring at the synagogue, the Lubavitcher on the corner hawking Messianic pamphlets, the Inquisitor at the local playground, the fundraiser who swears I’m not because I just won’t give.
As I have considered these matters, the work of the Medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides has provided me with great intellectual comfort. I will therefore refer to a passage from one of his seminal works, The Guide for the Perplexed, to help explain my approach throughout this work:
I do not presume to think that this treatise settles every doubt in the minds of those who understand it….No intelligent man will require and expect that on introducing any subject I shall completely exhaust it; or that on commencing the exposition of a figure I shall fully explain all its parts. Such a course could not be followed by a teacher in a viva voce exposition, much less by an author in writing a book, without becoming a target for every foolish conceited person to discharge the arrows of folly at him.
The question of my Judaism is mine alone, to ask and to answer.
This isn’t Am I a Jew? related, but I thought I’d share it anyway. I was in a bicycle accident in New York this past March, and I wrote a very short essay for the The Morning News describing my thoughts in its aftermath. A longish quote from “The City of Right Angles”:
As a seventeen-year-old in 1990, I was robbed at gunpoint across the street from what is now a Marc Jacobs store. Could that happen to me there today? Yes. But would I see it as I did then, as a normal, far from notable occurrence, not worth reporting to the police? I doubt it. That same year, I saw the body of a man who had been shot and killed lying on the street outside my school. I gawked, no doubt, but I made it to my history class on time. I left New York not long after, for college and the lost years of travel, self-indulgence, and failed writing that comprised my twenties. By the time I returned I was married, the children not long in coming, and my acute sense of the city’s menacing rhythms had been blunted. But that no longer mattered. In this New York, grass grows on the Great Lawn in Central Park, the squeegee men have been banished, and the broken windows have been re-glazed. The city I knew, the one on whose streets and subway platforms my survival instincts were honed, no longer exists.