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Robert Leiter
The signs
were not good. The publisher, HarperSanFrancisco, has gotten a reputation
for tapping into the New Age, with all its emphasis on mysticism and
Eastern religions, to say nothing of more fringe elements.
Tattooed Jews and other realities of life in
Purchasing this book
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helps fund JWR
'Generation J'
A writer discovers how to approach this thing called 'Judaism.' Well, sort of.
MIXED IN WITH ALL THE MEMOIRS that have been pouring out of the major
publishers over the past few seasons there has been an alternate rush of
"trend" books.
Just what, you may ask, is a trend book? It's generally a quick "study" of
some societal or cultural trend that has either made a recent appearance on
the scene or is expected to crest with the next wave of change. Publishers
are always hoping to get these types of books into stores just ahead of the
curve and capitalize on their topicality.
Trend books have been a staple of postwar publishing, and certain of them --
like Future Shock and The Greening of America -- became famous works, at
least for 15 minutes during the decades when they first appeared.
Titles like these have become an even more valued commodity in recent years
since publishing is now so intimately tied to the mass media. Not
surprisingly, these works often begin life as magazine articles. The
journalistic form of this kind of writing makes more sense as the immediacy
of newspapers and magazines suits the genre better. Often the time
constraints of book publishing ensure that the works hit the shelves just
as the trend is going into a death spiral.
These observations were stirred by the recent appearance of Generation J, by
Lisa Schiffman, which I approached with considerable trepidation.
Then there's the matter of the Generation J's cover art and its use of
type. A photo shows a bare back tattooed with a
Jewish star that has a flowering vine trailing through it.
Just above the art it reads: "Call us a bunch of searchers. Call us
post-Holocaust Jews. Call us Generation J." You couldn't ask for anything
closer to a magazine cover than this. And the deliberate attempt to play on
Generation X -- that directionless, cynical group of young Americans --
fairly knocks you over with its stunning lack of subtlety.
The New Age, pop-culturish tone of all this is reinforced in the opening
chapter of the work. The author offers her definition of Generation J, and
it seems no more encouraging than the implications of the cover type.
Most of the people who fall into the category, notes Schiffman, are third
generation American Jews with at least two grandparents "who came, accent
intact, from somewhere else."
"We [are] a generation of Jews who grew up with television, with Barbie,
with rhinoplasty as a way of life," Schiffman continues. "Assimilation
wasn't something we strove for; it was the condition into which we were
born. We could talk without using our hands. When we used the word schlepp,
it sounded American. Being Jewish was an activity: Today I'll be Jewish.
Tomorrow I'll play tennis. In secret, we sometimes wondered if being Jewish
was even necessary. We could resist that part of ourselves, couldn't we? To
us, anything was possible."
Generation J, the author notes, includes the unaffiliated, the secular, the
atheist, the indifferent or the simply confused -- i.e., millions of Jews
who feel lost. These people don't keep kosher and don't say blessings. They
have no idea whether their Jewishness amounts to "a religion, a race or a
tribal remnant." They learn to speak any language other than Hebrew and
while they don't go to shul on Saturdays, they may spend Sundays, at least
in Northern California where Schiffman lives, attending workshops to find
out who they are as Jews.
According to the author, these "fragmented Jews" exist "in a kind of limbo
between young adulthood and middle age, between Judaism and atheism,
between a desire to believe in religion and a personal history of
skepticism."
The broad brush strokes and the easy generalizations don't bode well for
the rest of the book. But if you press on, you find that, though these
qualities don't completely disappear, the work is far more serious than you
might have imagined from such an introduction.
Generation J is really not about a broad grouping of people, as its
publishers would like you to believe, but really about its author and her
personal journey toward Judaism. And even though this is a well-worn
literary path, Schiffman manages to be at times funny and moving and to
write with spirit and insight.
The author grew up in Levittown, New York, where, she tells us, Jews were
at a premium and anti-Semitism -- or mere ignorance -- was rife, making the
author wish she could have "ditched" her religion.
When she approached her parents about the subject, they were not
encouraging. Her father, a confirmed atheist, told her that all religions
"are a hoax." Her mother said that what goes on in synagogue was not what
made her feel Jewish. It's no wonder Schiffman intermarried.
In her search for the ultimate experience that will make her feel
definitively Jewish, Schiffman tries all sorts of avenues, both traditional
and otherwise. She talks to Buddhist Jews and gay Jews, takes her parents
and her husband to a Rosh Hashanah service at the Aquarian Minyan, works
with a woman on body and voice work to get in touch with her inner self,
has two mikvah experiences.
"Here was the paradox: Judaism, the religion of the book, understood that
life must be lived," Schiffman writes. "It knew that text could only go so
far. It knew the sound a blade made as it cut an animal's throat. It
understood how holiness could live at a table.
"Just then I heard Judaism call to me. Break bread with me, it said. Be
with me. Taste."
And so when her husband brings her an anniversary gift of a mezuzah to
affix to their front door, she is not hesitant. And as they set the symbol
in place on the door post, Schiffman notes that it seemed to her "Judaism
was a quiet revelation," that "it was a thing beautiful in
Robert Leiter is Literary Editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.
