Am I a Jew?

Title: Am I a Jew? – My Journey Among the Believers and Pretenders, the Lapsed and the Lost, in Search of Faith (Not Necessarily My Own), My Roots and who Knows, even Myself

Author: Theodore Ross

Publisher: Plume, 2013 (First published 2012)

ISBN: 9780142180396

Pages: 275

The world has some preconceived notions about Jews in general. They are thought to be smart, hardworking and rich. With the rising level of anti-Semitism in one’s own mind, other attributes like ‘wickedly clever’ and ‘cheating’ also tumble out of the closet. Jews are themselves conscious of the stereotypes in which they are represented. This creates pressure on them, forcing some to escape notice by resorting temporarily to embrace Christianity and affecting Christian names and practices. Theodore Ross and his mother were Jewish, but she enrolled him in a Christian denomination at age 9 as a precaution during his years of high school education. When he grew up, the author wanted to know about the social persuasions that forced the Jews to act like someone else. This book is a compendium of the author’s thought and travel with this aim in mind. He is the articles editor of Men’s Journal. His journalism and essays have appeared in major newspapers and he lives in New York.

Ross’ analysis of the American Jews flashes up a picture of increasing prosperity in their professional careers, but increased confusion and doubt on the religious and spiritual planes. Others ascribe Jews with smartness in their endeavours, as seen in the long lists of them leading in all walks of life. The amusing factor to note is that some of them appear to have taken this to heart, thinking themselves superior to their fellows. Their spirit of endurance is fabulous, as seen in an old Jewish joke reproduced in the book which says that “They tried to kill us. We won. Let’s eat”! This serves to entrench the notion that Judaism is more of a religion of ethnicity and code, rather than faith in god. Ideas of superiority are dangerous and are equal to antisemitism in its reverse context. It prevents the religion from proselytizing which it didn’t do in its entire history. Ashkenazi Jews take pride in their genetic purity. This mental separation shuts off doors of assimilation and inclusion. Ross describes about the full spectrum of religious beliefs in the numerous sects and congregations of Jewish people in America. There are those who follow strict observance of the rules of theological doctrines and adoption of Hebrew as the liturgical language, even though very few of the members understand it. Many Christians in America are in fact crypto-Jews, or at least, descendants of them. When European Jews were forcibly converted to Christianity in the Middle Ages, many secretly maintained their traditions throughout the centuries. The Edict of Grace promulgated during the Inquisition listed a set of practices the crypto-Jews were thought to be practicing, while allowing an option to repent with a minor penance. But contrary to intention, this edict became a manual of Jewish practices that were long forgotten among the converted people, who soon re-adopted them fervently. When they migrated to the U.S., they preserved the peculiar features of their worship at home and evolved into various sects based on their country or city of immigration, like the Skverist Jews who trace their origins to the Ukrainian city of Skvyra.

The book talks about a pronounced difference in the degree of assimilation exhibited by Jewish communities migrated to the U.S. before and after the Second World War. Earlier, they followed the prevailing practice of melting homogeneously to the whole in the great American Melting Pot, letting go of cultural markers like use of Yiddish or Hebrew. But after the war, American society tended to spruce up national unity by way of multicultural diversity. Ross claims that when emptiness of secular life, the insufficiency of materialistic routines and the failure to advance a reason for one’s presence were added to the mindset, the Jews began to display traits of distinctness like increased acceptance of religious symbols like the yarmulke. For the American Jews, faith is rather a culture, a sensibility, a form of humour, an array of tastes, a canon of literature and a philosophy of education, as remarked by the author.

Strange as it may seem, but some denominations of the Jews are sticklers of religious injunctions and archaic rules. Perhaps this steadfastness to religion was the raison d’etre of the continuance of the faith. But it can be amusing to read about some of the observances for Sabbath on Saturdays. Devotees stick to many rules which are incompatible in a modern society. Adherents are proscribed from carrying anything, including keys and one’s own overcoat! Doors remain unlocked for this reason. Any creative activity is shunned as also kindling and extinguishing a fire. The innovative worshipers find ingenious ways to circumvent the restrictions. They won’t use fire in a stove, but an oven can be used. Switching on and off of electrical power is taboo and necessary lighting is kept permanently on, or an electronic timer is used. Tearing of paper is banned, so toilet paper is cut into pieces and stored beforehand. Taboos extend to cleaning, writing, pushing a stroller, carrying a pot, conducting business transactions and spending money. Jewish multi-storey apartments use a clever device to bypass the restriction on electricity to use lifts in the building. The lifts will be pre-programmed to automatically stop at every floor in the building from the beginning of Sabbath with sunset on Friday to its end with sunset on Saturday. The author’s experiences with orthodox practitioners on Sabbath day make interesting reading.

As part of the research for the book, Ross had traveled to Israel as well, and presents a demographic question mark on the influx of Jews from Third World countries to it. The Jewish nation extends a larger than life helping hand to immigrants, with support at all levels. Jews in the Western world feel no compulsion, either economic or religious, to emigrate. The religion and its followers are not in peril in any developed country. The economic affluence of Jews is legendary! But Jewish people in Ethiopia, China, Manipur in India and other developing nations find it rewarding to migrate to Israel for economic reasons. This is in spite of the fact that most of them had already converted to Christianity a century ago, as a result of missionary activity. They have no compunction to convert again – this time to their original faith – when a better opportunity presented itself. Israel allows all Jews to make it their homeland and even permits converts back under the scheme Zera Israel, which literally means ‘Law of Returns’. This allows people of various races to inhabit Israel.

The book is not so easy to read as it is intended solely for an American readership with lots of cultural symbols thrown in the narrative without an explanation of what they are. This makes the reading tough for non-U.S. readers. At the end of it all, one wonders at the purpose of the book. We knew from the outset that the author had a very patchy relationship with Judaism, which remains the same in the end. He has introduced many denominations and congregations in American cities and their curious rituals, but there is no moral lesson, so to say, from this book. Ross should have included a glossary of Jewish terms used. We encounter numerous terms like bar mitzvah, but are clueless about what it means! A commendable thing is that it does not demand sympathy from the readers by extolling the martyrdom of millions of Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star