Last year, I compiled a list of literature I felt appropriate for the introspective nature of the High Holidays. Throughout the year, I shul hopped my way around the tri-state area and found a surprising form of synagogue worship: reading throughout the service. Everywhere I went, I found a steady group of people who came to synagogue to read. While some might find this offensive, I found it encouraging. The shul environment is tranquil, calm, and conducive to letting words wash over your mind. In that vein, here are eight more books—new and old—that I find transplant me to a more receptive mindset during these reflective days.

Fiction

Scenes From a Village Life, by Amos Oz

Oz, the elder statesmen of Israeli writers, writes this slim, beguiling state of the union address in the form of interconnected short stories about a fictional town in Israel. Death, decay, and loss pervade these stories that manifest an Israel uncertain of its past and frightened of its future. Yet despite the many dire situations, Oz evinces an infinite love for his homeland, albeit a homeland he sees as lost. Beyond their statement about the health of Israeli culture, these beautiful stories confront essential questions of family, loyalty, and the nature of commitment.

Love’s Executioner, by Irvin Yalom

Yalom is an interesting species of writer. Born Jewish, turned atheist and secularist, Yalom still displays an abiding spirituality in his embrace of existential thinking in psychotherapy. In his most famous book, Love’s Executioner, Yalom shares 10 stories from his therapeutic practice that allow the reader to explore personal fears and insecurities. The introduction itself, a pitch perfect summation of existentialist therapy, justifies the hefty price of the book.

Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes

Barnes’ meditation on memory and missed opportunities will entrance all types of readers. In this short book full of crystalline prose, Barnes weaves the story of Tony, a man in his sixties, looking back and questioning the tidy narrative of his life. In a time devoted to reflection, seeing Tony mine his experiences to understand how he got to the exact point he’s now at will open even the most cynical heart to the possibility of redemption.

Wise Blood, by Flannery O’Connor

One of the legends of 20th century fiction, O’Connor tends to get more notice for her short stories than for her novels. With her characteristic charismatic southern humor and darkness, O’Connor explores religious crises in an often surprising manner in her first novel. Though rooted in Christianity, the story of a young person returning home only to find himself struggling with his religious heritage will appeal to people of various persuasions. O’Connor, in her often mysterious way, makes the case that those who rail against God and those who live with doubt are some of the most religious people.

Gilead, Home, by Marilynne Robinson

Robinson represents one of the last bastions of religious writers. One of the best writers of our generation, she manages to combine some of the finest writing with the deepest religious sentiment. In Gilead, an aging pastor writes a letter to his son about the nature of faith, devotion, and the challenges of modern life. Robinson’s portrayal of religious life represents a true understanding of spiritual struggles and motivation. Home, a sequel of sorts to Gilead, tells the story not from the perspective of a dying pastor, but from the perspective of the prodigal son returning home. Any of her books, whether essay or fiction, would foot the bill for these introspective days, but this one-two punch captures the range of today’s religious experience.

Nonfiction

The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism, by Deborah Baker

Baker writes a stunningly brilliant biography of Maryam Jameelah, previously known as Miriam Marcus, a secular Jew who converted to Islam and became a famous writer of anti-American books in Pakistan. Baker weaves Jameelah’s story from her letters to her parents and others, but eventually Baker widens the book’s scope to investigate the charismatic leader that guided Jameelah’s transition, Mawlana Mawdudi, the divide between Islam and the West, and ultimately, an exploration of Baker herself. She questions her own assumptions about life, civilization, and the limits of knowledge—all while pushing the boundaries of a biography considerably beyond what we may expect from the genre.

In the Valley of the Shadow: On the Foundations of Religious Belief, by James Kugel

Kugel, a renowned biblical critic, explores his beliefs through his experience with cancer. Never one to shy away from the struggles of contemporary Judaism, Kugel seeks, with the mind of an academic and the heart of poet, to find “the starting point of religious consciousness.” He also takes the reader on a journey into the depths of religious experience.

HHhH, by Laurent Binet

We focus so much on the Jewish experience in the Holocaust that we risk forgetting the larger context of the war. Binet masterfully explores a secret mission to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague, while considering the nature of courage, heroism, and meaning—crafting an exciting, dramatic, true story. Binet also sheds light on more recent histories of war, genocide, and heroism, acknowledging that these episodes can make us feel our lives are a bit, well, mundane. Binet acutely taps into this epochal insecurity of ours. Often our lives can feel small and insignificant compared to those heroes of previous generations, but Binet also finds redemption in our ability to learn from history.

Previously: Days Of Awe(some) Books: A High Holiday Reading List

The post Days Of Awe(some) Books: A High Holiday Reading List, Part II appeared first on Jewcy.

We talk to Natchez about his musical development, the idea of a side man, and Yellow Ostrich’s excellent new album, Strange Land, which is out today.

Your resume goes on and on and on. How did you come into music and specifically, how did you grow into this role as an itinerant side man?

I was originally a sax player, and I liked it, but I was just a typical high school kid doing it because it was kind of fun. I was the only kid in my high school that could improvise. People needed me and I played with them. That’s how I joined a band in high school. We never got huge or anything, but we would tour during the summer and play clubs over the country, and I got bit by the bug. From then on I just loved listening and performing, and since it started at a young age, for good and bad it stuck with me.

You know, for a while, I cared more about films. Before I did music my nickname in junior high was Woody Allen, because I was Jewish and loved writing and talking about movies. Then in college, I wrote a bit about movies, and I still love long form literary journalism, but I never wanted to write about music. I just loved playing it.

And after college?

I moved down to New York, and I was doing the classic whole of exploring life options. I did a lot of crappy part time jobs, music here and there, and some freelance writing. All the while, I listened to a lot of soul, R&B and old records, but in terms of what I was playing, I was a jazz snob. In college and then after college I spent a lot of time practicing complex jazz, and I had this belated and small epiphany that I didn’t like playing this stuff. It was a fun challenge, and a great intellectual exercise, but I realized that the music I enjoyed listening to was different than what I played.

I was also listening to more obvious music of the time, i.e. Aeroplane Over the Sea, and all of a sudden, I realized that I wanted to make music in the vein of the stuff I love listening to. The jazz was fast and complex harmonically, but what I listened to was more complex emotionally, and the music had so many different textures.

What was your first stable gig?

I saw this band The Silent League, in 2003/4. It was the era of the polyphonic spree, post Neutral Milk Hotel, and this band had six members, and played emotionally rich music full of unique textures. I approached the band, and I joined up with them, and it became my main thing for a good two years. We had our run, did a couple of tours in England, and put out an album. That was a great chance to experiment in making music I felt connected to, and it was there I learned a lot of new instruments.

How did you find yourself in Beirut?

Well, Zach Condon, he was just getting started. He was this crazy story. He put out this album and never thought anything would happen, just this kid in New Mexico. He never even played live before that album came out, and all of sudden people are interested in hearing him. He moved to New York but his band needed more people, especially horn players, and his manager happened to know me. I had great chemistry with Zach and the band.

How then did you find yourself with Yellow Ostrich for the past year?

Very serendipitously. I was burned out from touring. I was touring with this other band Bishop Allen, and a french band, Herman Dune. I was on the road for 200 days a year. It became too much, especially because every band is its own brand of soap opera. I thought I was done with the touring part of my life. I just wanted to stay in New York and work on random projects, which I was able to do fairly regularly. A few years later, of course, I find myself wanting to be on tour again. And then just randomly, within me weeks of me having that realization, I get a call from my friend Michael Tapper, the drummer in Yellow Ostrich.

How did that first meet-up go?

Almost like a cliche. We went into the practice space, and I knew it would be a great fit, immediately, almost from the first few notes. I felt Alex’s music from the get-go. Michael sent me a copy of the Mistress LP, which was basically Alex recording alone, and I thought that it was very good, but I clearly saw that Alex had grown so much in that short time since he put out The Mistress that I knew Yellow Ostrich could be something great. So three weeks later I was on the road.

What do you find most compelling about the music and the band?

Good question. Many things. My chemistry with this band, for numerous reasons, is the best I’ve yet to experience. I have a very particular philosophy about bands that as much as there needs to be collaboration, the band needs to be built off one voice, metaphorically. A band needs a singular musical vision. With Yellow Ostrich, there’s been a great balance between collaboration and this singular vision.

In the case of Alex, I found his content and musical ideas compelling. People underestimate how hard it is to collaborate, but Michael and Alex make it easier than ever. Philosophy aside, I like the ideas that each person brings to the band. There’s a great balance of creativity and song craft. We are always trying to do something exciting, not just catchy hooks, but also playing with tones and textures.

Finally, it is really fulfilling being part of a trio. I have always been in larger bands of five to 10 people, but being in Yellow Ostrich there’s so much room for all of us to explore together, and they let me try whatever I want to try with different instruments. It is definitely the most challenging band I’ve been with, just physically, and in terms of the sheer number of instruments I get play around with.

One of the more interesting aspects of Yellow Ostrich is how quick and clear the evolution of Alex Schaaf has progressed, for everyone to see. What do you think of his evolution as an artist?

One of the things that’s been so great is to see Alex’s growth as an artist. He’s much younger than Michael and I, so much so that when I wanted to join the band, I worried if I could work with a 25 year old, but Alex is so incredibly mature and enjoyable to work with, both in terms of personality and his music. I generally shy away from the word maturity, but seeing him mature as an artist is amazing, just how fast it happens.

Another thing about being in a band that can get grating is that the pace can get excruciating. It can take four years to put out a record, and some artists never want to just release songs into the world that aren’t “perfect” in their eyes. But Alex and now Yellow Ostrich is all about working on something in the moment, taking the excitement of an idea and then constantly developing things as we go along. People don’t always realize that he has this whole back catalog. He would never play those old songs, but he’s thrilled he put it out there. For us, it’s not some Platonic ideal we strive for, but a creative process in flux. All three of us are very restless, which is another way we get along with each other.

Do you feel a tension between the more side man component of your career and a desire to be part of a distinct band?

I do have split personalities as a musician. I love the idea of being a side man. I romanticize the players of the 50s and 60s. These people saw music as a craft. It wasn’t just this precious muse to be kowtowed. You worked hard and played well. I loved the idea of bringing my own personal touch to something that isn’t mine. To me, there’s something noble and romantic about a side man, you get called in, you come to the studio, and leave. It’s stimulating and exciting to work on different music each day.

At the same time, artistically, and creatively, it’s obviously more rewarding to be part of a long term project. With Yellow Ostrich, I do feel apart of something that I know to contain great potential, and it is differently exciting.

How are you feeling about the band and record right now?

Sounds completely dick-headed, but I love this record. We spent the perfect amount of time on this record. We recorded quickly, but not too quickly. We recorded them in just about a week, and now we’re excited to see how they develop live, and we are already looking towards new ideas. I imagine though, that for the next album we will spend more time on in the studio, let it evolve more gradually. However, for Strange Land, there was just a restless excitement at the initial stages of the trio coming together, of where we are right now, and how much we enjoy playing together.

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Valentine’s Day and Linsanity are both, at best, tangentially related to anything in the way of Jewish culture, but their collective awesomeness (mostly Lin) collaborated to spill over into the Yiderati. Apparently, if you try hard enough you can actually connect anything, even Lin, to Judaism. Check out this post on ethnicity and basketball which reminds us, mostly, that normal people in the 1930s thought in pretty racist terms. Here, Jesse Eisenberg, of Zombieland and playing a Hasidic-Jew-pretty-badly fame, writes a great and playful satire of the Linsanity. David Brooks, in his new Op-Ed discusses his perceived tension (I don’t buy it,) between a religious ethos and a sports ethos quoting non-other than the giant of modern Orthodox thought, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik from his book, Lonely Man of Faith and his essay, Majesty and Humility.  Last in this category, and I’m still shocked by this, Dr. Ruth uses Lin as a way to talk about sex, of course.

For Valentine’s Day, I’m going to take this opportunity to introduce Esther C. Werdiger: a Jewish, talented, rising comic artist whose humorous and intelligent comics appear regularly on The Hairpin. More in the vein of great Valentine’s stuff – 10 of the greatest kisses in literature, yes please; McSweeney’s has a video of a love competition held by a Stanford MRI lab in which participants have five minutes to neurochemically love someone as hard as they can. I won’t lie, I was skeptical, but it’s an oddly brilliant and endearing video. Someone put together a great list of “dirty” love letters from famous authors. Lastly, an insightful excerpt on seduction from Pascal Bruckner’s upcoming book entitled the Paradox of Love.

Speaking of Valentine’s, I’m falling in love with The New Republic’s series in which they unearth old New Republic articles. This week they give us Upton Sinclair reviewing a book on Hitler and Lionel Mordechai Trilling on Willa Cather, which, obviously, is a great essay.

Ethan Bronner, a great journalist, stepped down as head of the Jerusalem section for the New York Times. Bronner, criticized by both sides, and called, a while back, to step down because his son chose to go into the Israeli army, I thought, did a great job with an impossible job. For one last hurrah here’s an interesting article from Bronner about a resurgence in Holocaust interest. In that vein, apparently, Israel has a great exhibit about the capture of Eichmann capture on display in Tel Aviv. If you live there, check it out, if not check out this article.

One a final note, in recent weeks with Oprah visiting a Hasidic community and the publication of Deborah Feldman’s memoir, there’s been a lot of discussion about the Hasidic community. This roundtable discussion from unpious.com is a refreshing conversation from people who actually lived inside the community. To end on a slightly more playful note, the New York Times has a slideshow of photographs from a Hasidic wedding in Israel.

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If you don’t know Deborah Feldman yet, you will soon. (Read here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.)  With a publicity onslaught rarely seen on the arrival of a new writer (The View!) we are bound to hear more of her in the upcoming weeks. In short, Deborah Feldman grew up in what many would call the misogynistic, insular world of Satmar Hasidim. Married at 17, Feldman then left the community to live the life of an independent single mother in NYC. Hermemoir , entitled Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots is not necessarily unique, her stye, at certain points well written, at certain points displaying basic mistakes of craft, both merit some attention, especially in the young adult crowd, but its ferocious reception strikes me as curious and worthy of analysis. I believe the hoopla speaks to a certain cultural shallowness in our understanding of religion and our definition of freedom.

For generations now, we’ve been living in a time in which religious transformation signifies somewhat the norm. Pulling apart the pieces, or dismantling, or wiping off the dirt of your religious personality (the different metaphors matter,) involves inner turmoil. Not to say the transition must entail sadness, or a mourning period, but a religious connection, especially one which entrenches itself deep in your inner psyche, requires precise, long surgery to remove, and surgery is always a trauma of sorts. Consequently, despite their prevalence, stories of religious transformation can be interesting, insightful, harrowing when approached with humility, sophistication, and a deep understanding of the larger mechanics at work, an understanding that requires time, thought, and patience.

I know that in the world of books, just as in every other world sensationalism sells. The masses seek out gossip, especially of the insulated religious kind (who amongst us doesn’t enjoy a small romp on the high horse of self righteousness, especially against religious extremists?) and young adult audiences  just want to know that no matter the situation you can do it, on your own, you can achieve and accomplish your dreams, which is no small lesson, and one that bears repeating. For me though, I know that Feldman can accomplish much more than a simplistic vision of unambiguous stories that appeal to something visceral in us all.

I met with Feldman before and after I read her story. Sometimes, I wonder about the choice to publish the book. Feldman wrote her memoir in the immediate wake of tearing away from Satmar, and because of that, the choice to publish this book strikes me as choice in the infancy to childhood stage of religious transition. It feels as if Feldman forgot not to send that angry letter we write, and then put in our desk drawer, and wait a week to send until our anger abates. The end of her book displays a picture of her, sitting on a bench, looking flirtatious, in pants, while smoking a cigarette….Freedom! Albeit, an empty looking one.

Besides the book itself, the publicity surrounding of the memoir is the type that makes me sad the way the insistence of a GoDaddy.com commercial makes me sad. Some of the publicity stunts, and some of what she says in interviews sound downright sensationalist and self aggrandizing. For example, the hyper-sexualized NY Post spread reeks somewhat of an antiquated idea that the antidote to the obsession with modesty displayed by Hasidic sects lies in the opposite choice of focusing even more on sexuality, which in the end of the day, still treats women as an objects. I feel no need to defend the Satmar community, and I don’t believe, necessarily, in the worry of airing dirty laundry. However, I feel that this book deserved a greater gestation period to mature. It bespeaks little understanding of the conceptual background from which she came, or of the life she chose as a replacement. Feldman writes from the early stage of religious transformations, a world in which her personal wisdom is something taken for granted, not earned.

In private conversations, though, Feldman speaks intelligently, almost in a lamenting tone about the price necessary to pay to sell books, mainly the sensationalist tone adopted in the latter part of the book title: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, or the title of the NY Post piece: “Woman Breaks Free!”, or the title of an ABC News piece: Hasidic Hell. For the most part I choose to assume that her publicist desired to create a public persona of Feldman as some kind of forward thinking, independent woman/sex symbol because otherwise, I don’t know how to spin a desire to see oneself as Kardashian-esque as sophisticated, or forward thinking. In fact some of the NY Post interview smacks of a certain kind of childish understanding of freedom as the freedom to do whatever you want as opposed to the freedom to search for your own version of the good life.

When you read the book, or talk to her, or read one of her interviews, you cannot discount her courage, her vision, her tenacity, independence, and bravery, but in many ways, these come off as largely the sounds and rumblings of a once powerless, victimized teenager, raging against her machine, instead of a sophisticated, calm look at an important transformation, or the larger social issues at work. Part of the immaturity stems from the realization that just because you break free from a repressive culture doesn’t mean that you immediately, or even slowly, become a different person. Tact, nuance, and subtlety come from a long time of struggling with ambivalence, the ambivalence of modern living.

I think the larger problem will lie in the inevitable, staid, tired cultural backlash. Some will see her story as a heroic escape that speaks of the larger ills of religion; a true American hero, right here! To them, the simple response is that this story, worn out with time, demands complication, not repetition. Others will see it as airing dirty laundry for narcissistic purposes, which I do disagree with because these types of stories do deserve their space, but both of these viewpoints stagnate our conversation about Hasidim. We treat them as angels or demons but never as humans.

Few books get written with the warmth and wit of an insider, detailing the range of experiences, both horrific and holy, the devotion, kindness of its members along with the insularity, intolerance, and mistrust. The world needs less of a tabloidesque, pandering view that caters to our need to feel superior, and more of balanced, nuanced understanding of that which we find strange, and yes, perhaps oppressive. I know, or trust, that Feldman, a talented writer, will take on this more mature task with time. In fact, I know that she hopes to open up a center for similar Hasidic women with some of the profit from her books. Perhaps the ends do justify the means. Regardless, for now, we get to sit back and watch the show. Good Luck, Deborah.

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I admit it. I am a Terrence Malick nerd. I spent large portions of this past staycation watching his whole ouevre, which, I admit is not the hardest feat to accomplish, what with a whole of five movies, but I did watch the extended version of the movies. Then, after I watched them again, I scoured the Internet for scraps of insight into the mystery of Terrence Malick: a reclusive director, who began a doctorate in philosophy, studied with Stanley Cavell at Harvard, translated Hegel, and made perhaps one of the most gorgeous movies of all time (I will fight you tooth and nail on the merits of The Tree of Life). However, after my long Internet journey, I ended up learning nothing about him, or his methods, or his themes, besides for scattered articles here and there.  I did learn that it never pays to try to put together pieces of news or to try to guess at the plot of an upcoming movie, or really any details about any of his upcoming works. Doing so is tantamount to either putting together the past of a person based on the names and descriptions on a tombstone, or similar to figuring out when the actual rapture will happen.

However, when I read that Malick booked Natalie Portman for two of his new movies I geeked out. Malick has three movies (perhaps four, you never really know) in the works, all with all-star casts, one unnamed, a romantic epic starring Ben Affleck And Rachel McAdams, followed by Lawless and Knight of Cups, both with Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett, and now both with Portman as well. Portman, though perhaps just another drop in the sea of stars for a sprawling Malick film, piques my interest because of the general role of women in Malick’s movies. Though women play a main role in almost all of his films (The Thin Red Line serving as the only exception in which women play no role except for a few natives.) they usually all serve the same purpose, variations on the same character: ethereal, spiritual, head in the clouds, representative of grace, religion, naivete, but mostly, innocence, overall a love object to the contrasting hardened, aggressive, violent, more earthly man. For that reason, I like to start to think of Portman in that role, as the embodiment of grace. I think she could fit this part perfectly, her classical beauty, her gentleness, her physical tininess, her profound ability to convey a range of emotions through facial movements, but, knowing that Cate Blanchett will star in both of these movies as well makes me think that Blanchett might be better fitted for this St. like figure, but who knows.

Before we get carried away in surmising the role of Portman in these movies, we should remember that until the actual date of release we can never actually who will play a lead or not, (Adrien Brody, famously, was edited out of a lead role in The Thin Red Line), or who will even make it into the final cut of the movie. So we here at Jewcy, the day after Tu B’Shvat, are praying that Portman makes the final cut.

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It’s no secret that we here at the Yiderati respect and enjoy the works of Adam Kirsch, and boy what a great week for Kirsch and his fans. First off, a stellar, well crafted, expert essay on the poetry of William Carlos Williams for the New York Review of Books. Next, perhaps in descending order of prestigious magazines, Kirsch writes on the revival of the 20th century Jewish writer, Joseph Roth, for The New Republic. Lastly, something we posted earlier this week, Kirsch wrote a very interesting, but in my thought, incomplete state of the union on Jewish literature in a review of Nathan Englander’s upcoming book of short stories What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank for Tablet Magazine. Slow down Mr. Kirsch!

Moving on from the world of literature to the world of music and movies, Alex Ross, perhaps our nation’s best music critic, has written an excellent piece on appreciating the gnomic Jewish composer Philip Glass in the wake of a new symphony and Glass’s 75th birthday.

Slate’s great series, The Completist, in which a writer completes a director’s entire oeuvre, takes on the Coen Brothers this week with very playful and insightful results. Great read. Lastly, I know we here at Jewcy talk a lot about our man Leonard Cohen, but anytime someone makes the claim that Cohen lyrical abilities transcends those of the other great Jewish bard, Bobby Zimmerman, I think we should all read the argument. (Ok, not necessarily for the Yiderati, but how many bar and bat mitzvahs have been uplifted by the music of Michael Jackson. Here, Andrew Vogel, writing for the Atlantic, discusses Jackson’s neglected, often misunderstood legacy.)

On a different note, sometimes, I find myself astonished at the persistence of certain questions of religion including the ethics of choice,(though the author, Peter Singer does not think from a religious perspective his piece raises classic religious questions) and the question of religion and state in America, and the question of religion and state in Israel.

For the true booknerds out there, check out this, dare I say, important interview with David Lazar, who created one of the first Ph.D. programs in nonfiction, on the bounds of creative non-fiction and literary essays from Bookslut. In that vein, Laura Miller discusses a similar topic when she tackles a Believer essay, turned into a book on fact checking.

Now, for the Internet argument of the week! Topic: On being a writer and dealing with the Israeli conflict. Erika Dreyfus seeks to find a middle ground between her leftist, writerly tendencies, and her allegiance to the idea of an Israeli State. D.G. Meyers responds, curtly, but to the point. Speaking of Israel, the musician, Cat Power, has decided to cancel an upcoming concert in Israel. There’s not much to say on this worn out topic but to note the fact that I didn’t actually think that Israelis would know who she was. Interesting!

Oh, and I forgot to mention, but our Editor-n-Chief, Jason Diamond, wrote an opinion piece for a little known periodical, The New York Times, an article, by the way, which made it to top of their most popular list. Cool.

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I imagine Ben Marcus, despite his prodigious talent, sadly, doesn’t make the biggest splash outside of the literary world. His previous works: experimental, challenging and brilliant, have drawn wide acclaim and a cult-like following, but he lacks the controversial nature of other authors (unless you count an argument with Jonathan Franzen in Harper’s Magazine) and often writes with a density that precludes a mass audience. However, in his new book, perhaps his most stylistically conventional to date, The Flame Alphabet, Marcus attempts to meld his ambitious intelligence with a more classic narrative style. Not shockingly, our conversation touched upon a range of subjects including the power and limitations of language, Kabbalah, the nature of family dynamics, and the state of the American novel.

Jewcy: Your book describes a world in which the language of children literally kills adults, both a scary and ambitious idea for a novel. Where did this idea come from?

I have always thought of language as something very potent, something that could change us on a biological level, the way a drug can. It affects our feelings, changes our behavior, and when I thought of it that way, and magnified it, I wondered what would happen if we consumed too much of it, if it could or would be poisonous, and that was the first idea of language as a virus, which seemed to generate a lot of stories for me. But it was equally important to be happening to a family. It was important for me to portray the struggle of a parent. I was really interested in having a parent go through the challenge of having to choose between staying with a child and perishing because of it, or leaving and dealing with that shame.

You chose to unleash this nightmare virus on a family that already displayed some pretty dysfunctional relationships…

Yea, that’s right. It’s not as though they had a perfect relationship beforehand, and I thought of that, but it seemed that if this toxic language visited a happy family, it seemed too easy to just pick on this joyful and peaceful family and send this meteor down on their house. This choice seemed to me more morally complicated, that they already had trouble and issues. I think one of the things that I try to do throughout the book is to slowly escalate the moral problems.

You speak of morally complicated situations, and your characters are morally complex as well, almost to the extent that some of them can engender a lack of sympathy. I’m thinking of Esther who gives the angst ridden teenager a new dimension. What do you think of her as a character?

Well she might have been a teenage bitch to her parents, but quite possibly she was not to her friends.  We only have the story from one person, her parent, Samuel’s eye, and I am fascinated how people are different around their parents than around their friends and everyone outside in the world. In a way, parents are a punching bag, of course that’s not all they are, but it’s safe to misbehave around your parents because they wont break up with you. I think what attracts me is that in our lives and in our imagination family is completely essential and yet it is a cauldron of a lot of bad behavior, tension, and vulnerability.  You don’t love anyone the way you love your family, but it’s also the safest place to test out your fears and bad behavior. I like Esther, but I was aware that I was just showing one side of her. Plus to me, her teenage rebelliousness made a kind of sense; the logic of a teenager. I think what it comes down to is that it is not her story, we see ultimately as her father sees her.

There seems to be an inherent tension in a book full of words attempting to describe the danger and limits of language.

Well, that’s a kind way to put it. I basically gave a gift to a reviewer who didn’t like the book. It’s a huge unanswerable paradox to use language to write about the end of language. I can’t imagine my life without language. I have the craziest and the most delusional belief that there is far more to language than we’ve even discovered. Consequently, to try to write with language about this paradox can be one of the most fascinating things I can try to do, and I keep thinking that more is possible and if you put the right words in the right order we will unlock deeper riches of human experiences. It’s a lot of faith in language, and that’s partly why I wanted to reverse the idea for myself. I try this a lot, to reverse my belief so as to feel vulnerable when I’m actually writing about it, because if it’s antithetical to what I really feel it almost forces me to live the bad dream I am writing and to try think differently.

This idea of the untapped potential of language leads us into the mysticism of the book.

To me I couldn’t imagine this book without mysticism.  It’s fundamentally, at least how I understand it, opposed to using language to try label our deep spiritual experience.  It suggests that deep spiritual mystical experiences are beyond language, which is an amazing taunt to me.  On the one hand people chase after it and try to describe describe and describe, but I think there is something romantic and alluring and compelling to the idea that language can’t reach a certain level of experience, not only can’t, but that language is almost a suspicious decoy away from those experiences.

Besides mysticism, there seem to be a little bit of Nietzschean idea of the limits of language.

He’s an interesting reference, but even on the sweeter side, it’s funny, but for some reason I am noticing more and more people going on retreats were they take vows of silence. Places where the whole idea is to not speak for a while, to pursue this fantasy of what you might think and feel if you weren’t constantly trying to say what you think or feel. The more I read into Kabbalah, I found that what I had invented at least with the way these characters worshipped in the woods and their relationship to language, made my idea of language feel less invented, and more of an ancient idea, maybe I just needed to delude myself, but I am pretty sure there are many antecedents.

In terms of style, this seems to be the least experimental of your books. This is a book with almost a classical narrative arc. How did you make this choice?

Well, I found it essential that one person tell it.  As opposed to my earlier books which used different narrators, or unseen or removed omniscient narrators, here, I felt very compelled that this wasn’t supposed to be told that way, that it needed to be a story of one person, and that is why it has the look and feel of a more traditional narrative. Additionally, I felt that I wanted to have a lot of momentum to move along as quickly as possible so that in a certain sense the hurdles to the believability of the idea wouldn’t settle in, because the conceit would put too much pressure and leave the reader scratching their head. So the ruse was to keep changing and moving things so that people wouldn’t stop and think about.

In a book of evil, grotesque, and disgusting situations, there are moments of beautiful poetic transcendence in the writing. How does that fit in with the larger tone of the book? Specifically, you wax poetically on the potential of the Hebrew language.

Well I think that it is intentional there. The narrator is trying to invent a new language and out of some dim notion of respect he has refused to use Hebrew to test on the subjects because he doesn’t want to injure anyone with the Hebrew language, but he starts to think he might find a sort of personal antidote in it.  I wanted to suffuse that feeling with some reverence and hope.  Sam feels reverence towards this, and believes that the Hebrew language is not finished, that the whole mystical idea of the Hebrew alphabet has sort of these potential missing pieces if plotted together, or built out, would release everybody from this difficulty.

This is a novel full of mysteries, riddles, and philosophical ideas underlying the compelling narrative, did you ever think that there is a saturation point of philosophy or ideas in a novel?

Yes. The saturation depends on trendiness. It also depends on how commercial you want to think about a reader, and what kind of reader you write for.  I think I did put thoughtful material in the book, but I did not want it to feel inert or just a repository of ideas, although there is all that, I think I used to do that more often, but here I was more interested in illustrating or embodying ideas, setting it in motion, so that a reader could find it there if he or she wanted to, but it wasn’t feeling like you were getting schooled in this book.

These questions sound similar to those you tackled in your Harper’s article on experimental fiction and Jonathan Franzen

Look, it’s an interesting question about American fiction in general and the kind of books we consider major. I try to think of the ten major books of the last decade, and it’s an interesting question. I think the basic question is how to write substantive books that you want to write without alienating people. I don’t feel that readers need to be forced to read anything, and if something feels didactic to them, they shouldn’t read it. In the end I think the challenge and problem and responsibility comes back to the writer, and the writer needs to accept how much they care about something.  The artistic challenge is whether they can find a delivery system for their material that is engaging vital and entertaining without forfeiting the issues that started their novel off.

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For so long I hoped to find where people my age prayed. I have slowly begun to find some pieces of the answer. Much of the answer depends on demographics, both of age, but more importantly, of personality, though not necessarily level of religiosity (something which, in general, eludes easy categorization.) Many people, in a discussion about this specific question of perceived lower attendance of synagogue, explain that they want to attend synagogue for reasons of communal connection, and for the most part, too many synagogues do not offer the type of communal experience they seek. Now this might seem shallow, and largely antithetical to the ambitious poetic vision of the purpose of prayer from the bard of our penitential, supplicatory hymns, Rabbi Joshua Heschel: “Prayer must never be a citadel for selfish concerns, but rather a place for deepening concern over other people’s plight.”

However, as many sociologists point out, and we as all know intuitively, prayer matters so much because it serves as a consistent social experience centered on this more poetic vision of prayer. The ultimate goal of prayer might rest in the heart of our deepest selves, but it is through engaging our social aspects that we create an environment, a community of prayer. However, in the transition from generation to generation, we need to relearn how to create communities. The methods and the goals of the past do not necessarily translate into the proper methods and goals for this generation, and in this gap, we find creativity.

Many of my generation, feeling aloof from the classical shul experience, seek to create their own services, so a DIY (do it yourself) minyan provides the next logical step. Furthermore, weaned on an era of independence, initiative, and individuality, certain components of the classic shul experience appear outdated. The idea of a leader, of a Rabbi, feels slightly offensive to our sensibilities, or simply to our taste. We would rather listen to a peer speak about the Torah portion, or some idea, than some austere, learned, member of the clergy. In our litigious times, we barely understand the concept of authority, or feel swayed by the power of charisma. For too long, we’ve been taught to doubt, to question authority, and repeatedly we’ve been let down by politicians, by their self aggrandizement that we do not even react in shock anymore at abuse, or even proper usage of power. Similarly, as we empower the next generation in every area of life, in college, in their career, in their choices, we can expect that servility to the traditions of a older community seem less appealing than the allure of a do it yourself service.

Though not a new phenomenon, the DIY minyan serves numerous purposes. This week’s shul hop, a young DIY service of over 100 people, signified less a minyan of convenience, less a service of a statement, and more a fun environment to try on the clothes of prayer, while looking fantastic with many other attractive young people in an almost party-like environment. It’s actually quite a beautiful experience, almost a prayer party, if that makes sense.

The prayer itself in no way veers from a normal, Orthodox, Friday night experience, rather, it’s the ambiance and people that distinguishes this minyan. The service, a monthly one, takes place in the apartment of one kind family.

The home itself, a stunning, large apartment (the kitchen itself the size of my actual apartment,) with a modern décor that evinces a strong belief in spirituality, or perhaps feng shui: Kabbalistic paintings, a plethora of yoga mats and meditation pillows, the color scheme, a variation on a the theme of a deep rich red or maroon, books like the Secret or something written by Paulo Coelho, and an oddly ironic, but endearing sign in a home that relates that “home is where you are.” Also, a pink Hannah Montana acoustic guitar that truly ties the room together. Praying in a home, because of its complexities, creates a unique prayer experience.

I cannot gloss over the inherent tension in praying in a personal home. The house saps formality, perhaps purposefully so, invites distractions, and belies the idea of a synagogue as a house, specially designed and used for God. And yet, in actuality, despite all the aforementioned possible tensions, in many ways a person can feel a greater intimacy with the prayer because of the loving, home environment, which fosters the idea that we Jews love to claim as our own unique idea: that no distinction exists between the house of God and our homes.

Part of this DIY minyan entails a more explicit embrace of the butcher shop phenomenon. Many lament, as I have in the past, that certain shul experiences feels less like a service, and more like an undesired stage show in which you must wear the right clothing, talk and walk the right way, and generally please, in order to secure your dating prospects. Ironically, though some experience this feeling as claustrophobic, and hope to excise it from services, this minyan, it appears, amps it up, transcends it through explicit acceptance of its important role in our changing definition of community. I find it too easy to criticize the idea of shul as a meat market, especially when everyone is on sale, and everyone wants to be on the seller’s block. In fact, something felt downright electric about the lack of any pretenses otherwise, about the honesty in which this created community embraced the sexual electricity pulsating throughout the night.

For example, walking to the bathroom, which requires a walk through the narrow space in the front of the women’s section, in my beat up corduroys, wearing a 3 year old Old Navy sweatshirt, sweating just a bit, hair mussed and not gelled in any important way, felt like some odd Kafkaesque experience of a cat walk. Yet, I enjoyed it. Not because of my confidence in my looks, especially given my relative unkempt appearance, but because how often do we get looked at in that way these days; even if seen simply as a prospect for dating, it still counts as an acknowledgment of our existence.

Adding to this ambiance, the Carlebach style minyan, a service based on the songs and style of the controversial Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, one whose music evokes and elicits the range of emotions, including arousal (No one would think of his songs as sexy, but they are certainly emotionally liberating.) I can’t fully explain it, but something about the whole neo-Hasidic, musical, spiritual, mystical new agey feel of these services, even under the most orthodox of standards elicits a strange sexuality. Perhaps the encouragement of dancing, or perhaps its stems from the associations of new age practices like yoga, or meditation, with a more liberal sense of the body, but these type of “spiritual” minyans, ones that look to unlock something withering within us, unlock the spectrum of emotions, not just those of divinity or transcendence.

Let’s also not forget the few rounds of Smirnoff vodka for some pre and post service Kiddush, a flimsy, symbolic mechitzah in the shape of a low couch, and about 120 mostly single Upper West siders, so you can expect constant glances to the left or right, heightened levels of self-consciousness, those who get caught staring, those practiced enough almost to see through the prayer books to the cute guy or girl in the back left corner, “no, not that one, I mean, they’re cute too, but the other one, yea, that one, what’s his name and deal?” All questions that the hostess receives often and answers obligingly, with a twinge of excitement (though apparently, this service was created and is run by numerous people, not just one hostess.) Never underestimate the power felt in playing matchmaker.

Of course, I cannot speak for the motivations of each person there, nor, obviously, does the sexuality define the whole experience. People come to this minyan to feel freer, unfettered by the bounds of shul traditions like the rabbi’s speech, or the prudish divide of wooden boards; free from the glare and stares and questions of adults (“So, you married, going out with anyone, ready to date? What type of person you looking for, modern? OK, but how modern? Do you wear pants, yes, but would you ever wear skirts?” Or the kiss of death, “One day, with God’s help, by you…” or, “Do you know my grandson/daughter?”) and they come to feel uplifted, moved, empowered by the warmth of the sonic womb of harmonic, emotional singing, led by an attractive cantor with a soothing, flirtatious voice. None of these aspects clash with the more club style feel to the whole service; they cohere into a balanced whole.

Overall, despite my purposeful focus of the sexuality of the service, what stays with me is the strong desire on the part of such a devoted group of young adults, looking to create their own warm community, full of care, devotion, and kindness. In my search for the prayer services of my age, experiencing a service run completely by my peers, especially an uplifting minyan, softened my hardened heart. We are young, good (looking) people, still attached, still searching, and if we find a date, spirituality, and a bit of a party along the way, who can feel begrudged by our playfulness?

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A Rabbi in the world of the famous Bloomsbury Group? Apparently so. Check out his story here.

Recently, Art Spiegelman of Maus fame, published a new book entitled MetaMaus. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a book describing the process of creating Maus as well as legacy of the book on the world, but more importantly on the artist himself. Here, Lee Konstantinou, from the L.A. Review of Books, writes a highly intelligent review of the book that captures both the gifts and frustrations of MetaMaus.

As people of books, we’ve been trained to learn lessons from our texts, but when it comes to literature this always creates tension in our experience of reading. Laura Miller, one of our best literary critics, discusses this phenomenon in an illuminating article. For fairness sake, here’s an indirect rebuttal from Josh Cook at one of our favorite websites bookslut.com

Ok, let’s admit it, we all are kind of obsessed with Scientology on some level, but don’t actually know anything about it. Here’s a chance to learn. Rachel Aviv has written a great review of an academic book that tackles the church of Scientology for the London Review of Books.

Tony Judt, one of the most captivating, polarizing, public Jewish intellectuals of the 20th century passed away in 2010. However, he has left us much to think about, and his new, posthumous, book Thinking the Twentieth Century, in which he discusses with Timothy Snyder a summation of his ideas on the past century promises to create even more important conversations and ideas for months to come.

Ever heard of the Jewish author Ludwig Lewisohn? Neither have we, but here, D.G. Meyers makes a compelling case that we should.

If you are still interesting in the insanity that continuously goes on in Israel in regards to modesty laws here are two opposing articles from two very smart men. Rabbi Dov Linzer, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, while Professor Shaul Magid, politely proceeds to tear apart Linzer’s argument. Regardless, they are both edifying.

The greatest books of all time, as voted on by 125 authors. Amazingly cool. Check it out.

Also cool. Joan Didion writing in 1979 on Woody Allen’s early movies from New York Review of Books. Pretty Great

And now, for the lighter side of the Yiderati, I think we should all feel proud that Adam Sandler, the enigmatic comedian has signed on to for the long awaited movie version of Candyland. Shocking, I know. Here are the details. Lastly, Gabe Delahaye, one of our favorite rising comedians has written a great review of the all important 100th episode of Gossip Girls. Enjoy.

The post The Weekly Yiderati: Virginia Woolf’s Rebbe, The Maus Legacy, Tony Judt, And So Much More For Book Nerds appeared first on Jewcy.

We often think too much that we forget to feel. We wrap words in the armor of tough cynicism, or playful irony, or political and ideological garb. I am not convinced that we’ve grown out of the need to hide our genuine feelings of, “ouch, this hurts,” or, “I really just want be loved,” in some sort of protective clothe, but sometimes I see glimpses.

Despite our need for a cynical exterior we give leeway to memoirists to display unalloyed feelings, either because, like Dave Eggers, they hide behind a knowing wink of unease, or like Mary Kerr, their life circumstances shock the cynic out of our system, and quiet the part of us that worries about looking cool. We scour the shelves for the next sensational story, a boy locked in a room all his life, a schizophrenic mother who forced her children to grow up impoverished, despite the riches to their name. Extreme pain and trauma bypasses our need for a knowing wink of cynicism. These stories of life in extremis allow us to feel, again, without guilt. Sometimes, memoirists punish our indulgence with self-pitying or self-aggrandizing drivel, while other times, they reward us with profound insight into humanity. Memoirs, though, as with all writing, works best when it can transcend itself.

Given this mess surrounding memoirs, I hesitated when I first read Deborah Jiang Stein’s Even Tough Girls Wear Tutus. Stein, adopted by white academic Jewish parents, finds out that her biological mother, a heroin addict, gave birth and weaned her for a year in prison. From there, Stein barrels through life on rebellious, angry mode until her resilient self finds some sort of serenity in her current life in her ability to live with ambiguity. I desperately did not want to read the book for reasons too self-deprecating to go into, but I did, and as usual, my initial assumptions spoke more about my insecurities than anything else. It took me no longer than the first paragraph to fall a little in love with Stein:

Some people end up in prison. My life begins inside a prison, a five-by-eight-foot room, my first home for a year. This book is a piece of my story; about the ravages caused by secrecy, shame, and stigma, and what happens when opposites tug inside. All which led me to a bigger truth – not everything in life can be reconciled.

Stein writes with such a chosen simplicity, the ability to call rage rage, and truth truth, that it knocks down my defenses. I care about her, about her story even though it lacks complicated aesthetics, or piercing insights into the complexity of a post-post modern life. It just is, real and humane, and unabashedly emotional. For example, she creates, perfectly, the rage of an adopted childhood with one word. “Mother grounded me for some violation I can’t remember. She insisted Jonathan, my older brother, and I call her the formal Mother. We’re both adopted. I wanted to call her Mama but couldn’t let the softness out.”

That word choice, “softness,” kills me. It shatters my heart into a million little pieces. In terms of the craft, one of the harder challenges for a writer entails writing in the voice of a believable child. Few pull this off well, but here, using softness instead of kindness evokes the whole spectrum of childhood. The daughter of a poet, Stein inherits a poetic voice from her non-biological mother. (“But the secrets we bury stay with us forever, glued to our insides like sticky rice. Inside a river seethes, quiet and furious.” The wild images of a fiery imagination.)

In a style similarly shorn of any need for decorations, purposefully straightforward, and yet poetic, Stein tells the story of her transformation from a young rebellious, closed child to a criminal teenage and young adult, moving from one high to the next, until her acclimation back to a societal life: a mother of two, an inspirational speaker, and a fighter for the cause of prison reform. The FBI used her story as a paradigm of prisoner reform; it’s truly that drastic of a story, but without one ounce of self-pity or self-aggrandizement.

On the whole, though, the book navigates dangerous territory for a memoirist. The largest problem, a problem all memoirs need to navigate lies in the question of inclusion and exclusion. Not only because a writer cannot include every detail of their life, but because writers want to create some ambiguity, leave some mystery so they ask themselves, what facts, thoughts, insights, struggles, and motivations make the cut? I found myself wanting much more than Stein provided. Stein leaves out too many essential aspects of her life. She rushes through the rehab, the drug binges, the criminal sprees, and motherhood. I understand her motivation both in terms of pacing, concerns with length, and the desire to create an arc of a story that works in a perfect circle. Additionally, I understand the need for a public figure to leave some breathing space for her private self to live, but at a certain point, I felt overwhelmed by a litany of facts instead of feeling attached to Stein’s compelling stories.

Regardless, I find it hard to begrudge a book with such a raw, pure, emotional punch; a book unafraid of its content, or the lessons learned; a writer aware that often, our stories demand more than a portrayal, that our stories command a response, an action. Indeed, Stein continuously answers her own call. Stein created the unPrison Project, an organization dedicated to, “to enhance life skills and advance education, mental health, and emotional wellness for women in U.S. prisons.” With another memoir planned, as well as a companion journal to this book, and a book of short stories, I look forward to hearing much more from Deborah Stein, and I hope you do too.

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