Kissing Girls on Shabbat by Dr. Sara Glass

If you read a certain amount of books, more than the average anyway, on a specific topic or belonging to a well-defined genre, sooner or later you will become satiated with the topic. There is a certain pattern repeated over and over again, with only personal details filled in. Take, for instance, the case of the off the derech memoirs, out of which I´ve read a good bunch of in the last years, as the genre is becoming more and more popularity.

You have the person who does not fit in, the oppressive religious conformity that cannot be tolerated any more, following an illumination-kind of acknowledging the absurdity of some or all religious tenets. Afterwards, there is the fight or the loneliness, faced with the lack of skills for economic survival and very often the struggle to keep the children or the broken heart for not being able to keep them.

However, despite the overall predictability, I will not give up reading those memoirs, because the more repetitive they are, the clearer the certain trends within religious communities - I read in general memoirs of getting out of faith: there is a new generation that may find different ways of positioning towards religion and willingly or not, even the most closed groups will be suprepticiously changed one day.

Take, for instance, the Gur Hasidim, who are practicing very strict marital relationships, considered by many as oppressive: not using the given name for the wife, separate walking ways, discourage of any closeness between spouses unless for procreation. Being born a Gur in America, experiencing queerness from an early age, Dr. Sara Glass succeeded to write her own story: becoming independent, cutting the dependency ties with the community while keeping her precious children.

Manipulated into religion by the sake of her children and the religious background of her family - ´A kosher woman does the will of her husband´ -, she had to play the appearances, even after her divorce, otherwise she may have lose them. The power of the batei din - the religious tribunal deciding, among other, in issues of divorce and child custody - may overcome that of the secular authorities, especially when the woman does not have the proper knowledge and advice for checking the content of the documents she is signing. You are not represented by a lawyer in the front of the religious courts thus the risk of being completely unaware of the legal consequences of the documents signed. Religious communities are tied by trust, obviously, why do someone may need a lawyer anyway?

Kissing Girls on Shabbat that I had the chance to have access to in audiobook format, read by the author, focus less on how bad, backwarded and generally disgusting the community is - as it is the case in at least one such memoir - but on her own story. Her own work to achieve the best version of herself, the engagement trying to help people in a similar situation, her doubts and obsessive fears of being taken away her children. Also, more importantly, the importance of actively being involved in helping distressed people, unable to get over by themselves of their mental health struggle, overcoming generational or recent family trauma. 

It is love not hate or revenge that motivates her life. At 24, she was the mother of two children, at 32 she came out, and established her career as a therapist while being together with her children. Education gives power, including to gently overcome one own´s struggles.

Kissing Girls on Shabbat - whose collage-like cover is also worth mentioning - is a moving testimony of those strengths.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Bad Jews?

From within the Jewish Orthodox realm, the choice between good and bad in terms of Jewish practice - although halachically not recommended - is relatively easy. There are degrees of religious conformity, things that should never be done - like mixed marriages, but lines and limits are very clear. However, outside this safe space, the diversity may be a blessing and a curse as it rather delves into questions, way too many questions that may overshadow any trace of clarity.

Journalist Emily Tamkin - published, among others, in The Washington Post, New Statesman, The Forward - does not pretend to have an answer, but collects pieces of a mosaique that may be, in the end, constructed in many possible ways. 

Bad Jews. A History of Jewish Politics and Identities is a welcomed contribution to the neverending, very actual debate about who is good and who is bad - which confounds sometimes with the question about right and wrong, but not necessarily. The debate is even more important since 7/10, with often mentions of ´Jews for Palestine´ or ´Against the ´Genocide´´. For some, such individuals are ´good´, for many others they are as ´bad´ as any plain Hamas supporter.

It´s relevant to read the book from this perspective time-bounded, but for a full understanding of the Jewish identity in the US, and in some cases outside Israel in general, the book offers that general frame. It analysis not only stereotypes and the ideological division - very normal as long as Jews do belong as citizens to a national community, but also go the the root of the motivation for different divisions - for instance, for most American Jews, Israel may not be the most important identity issue. Some Jews may grow up with a synagogue affiliation, some of them without a Sunday school, some may send their children to Jewish camps although they are not observnt any more. Some may think that protesting for Palestine is your mission to ´make the world a better place´. 

Identity may be fluid. Opinions may be wrong. People may be unaware of what they do support. People may love to be wrong. A lesson learned of Tamkin´s book is that before judging one should consider several identity markers. Which does not mean that everyone is right. 

Jerusalem, via Berlin

 

The intellectual history of Israel is still to be written, but for sure it reveals as more complex than a black-and-white painting separating Zionists from anti-Zionists. As it usually happens in the case of intellectuals, the more nuances the better in order to reach a higher level of understanding.

Personally, I believe that historians should take a big distance from emotional involvement and often felt like the split between the abovementioned categories of historians is too feeling-driven. It´s like each is trying desperately to prove the other one is wrong, ignoring on the way to accomplish the researcher´s mission of finding and exposing the truth. 

Hence, I usually took very critically the works by Tom Segev, but could not resist the temptation of reading his memoirs, hoping that maybe I can have a better understanding of his background.

Born as Thomas Schwerin, in a German family, his parents fled Germany in 1935. Both of his parents were involved with the Bauhaus movement, his mother a photographer, his father an architect and toy manufacturer. Only his father was Jewish, and he grew up speaking German as mother tongue. His sister, Jutta, is based in Germany and is an architect and a politician for the Green Party.

For many years, Segev worked as a journalist, among others, for the left-wing Haarets, reporting from many parts of the world, interviewing famous local and international personalities. Maybe his love for journalism, permeated too much his everyday life, as according to his memoirs, he used at least twice his acquaintances as subjects of daily feuilletons and reporting - one was his adopted son, an Ethiopian-born Jew, another one, a drug addicted acquaintance who stalked him obsessively for years, asking for money and a warm blanket, a weird relationship between source and journalist to be honest.

What is really important to understand from his memoirs - subjective, as one may expect from this type of writing - is the many nuances and motivations of the Israeli intellectual life. Layers of personal experiences, expectations, personal choice, ideological profile. After reading this memoir, I will be most probably interested in reading his historical books as well, obviously, with that grain of salt that comes into question when reading history anyway.

Ironically, for a language buff is that the book was published by Munchen-based Siedler Edition House. ´Siedler´ translates as ´settler´, but the name of the edition house does not have anything to do with the category that people like Segev do not agree with. The name takes it from the founder, Wolf Jobst Siedler.

The Matchmaker´s Gift by Linda Cohen Loigman

´Love is not always a straight, shining line sometimes, love is a shady part, full of unpredictable truths´.

Shadchans - Jewish matchmakers - do have sometimes a shady reputation and there are many scary stories about how people - particularly older (matches from 23 years onwards) or divorced, or divorced with children, or from divorced parents and the list can go on and on and on - are treated. Or rather mistreated. But there are also happy couples who were successfully matched by heartwarming shadchans who put the interests on their clients beyond their profit expectations.

Although I am pleased to hear stories, any kind of stories, about matchmaking, religious or not, literature about the topic is rare. Hence, my high interest in reading The Matchmaker´s Gift by Lynda Cohen Loigman, a book I had on my TBR for way too long.

Inspired by real matchmaking stories she was shared, the book is set alternatively at the beginning of the 20th century and mid 1990s. Sara, a gifted intuitive matchmaker who set up people since she was 10, based a mysterious outerwordly reading of people - there is a hollow and a spark she is able to see when people interact - and her divorce lawyer Abby are the main storytellers. Shortly after Sara´s death in her late 90s, Abby is going through her grandmother´s diaries. The knowledge she got, matched with the constant memories of being told she may have the same gift, almost ruined her hardworked career. After all, which divorce lawyer would want to work with someone who is actually convincing people to stay together? But in America, everyone has a place, and it seems that Abby found her niche.

The Matchmaker´s Gift is a heartwarming book, with so many interesting insights including in the ways in which marriage changed from being an institution to a story of love and consentment. Sara´s matchmaking, set to deal with ´no negotiated or mercenary marriage´, fuels dreams of love and stories ´brillant enough to last´. 

The type of Judaism manifested is North American, not necessarily religious, and Sara´s matches touched upon a large variety of people, outside the tribe as well. 

The interactions between characters count the most and although I would have expect more interaction, social context and stories in general, I´ve enjoyed the book. Somehow, it feels as the author is tiptoeing carefully on a very complex area hence the modest story and character development. However, I would definitely read more by Cohen Loigman in the future.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Movies with a Jewish Topic on Netflix: Kulüp

 

For a long time I haven´t watched a movie with a Jewish topic on Netflix, but this was only a metter of time. As I am getting more and more interested in discovering the Ladino culture and its representations, I was recommended by several respectable sources to not miss Kulüp - The Club - set in the 1950s multicultural area of Pera in Istanbul. And what a journey it was - a binge watching one, for sure.

The series were released between 2021 and 2023, is spoken in Turkish with many Ladino expressions and beautiful songs. It is built around the story of a night club, who is undergoing various challenging, both at the personal, socio-political and economic level.

The film starts when Matilda Aseo, the heir of a once rich Jewish-Turkish family, is returning after an amenisty following the murder of her once lover, a Turkish entrepreneur who apparently ruined her family. After 17 years spent in prison, she is supposed to get in touch with her daughter, Rașel, who was sent meanwhile in an orphanage. The relationship is tensed and while trying to save her rebelious daughter from prison, she makes a deal that may mark her life from now on.

First and foremost, the screenplay is very well written, with way too many changes of situation, which correspond in fact to the outside environment, such as the riots against the Greek minority, the taking over of Jewish properties during the war, the military putch, the raise of real estate tycoons and the subsequent gangster-like crimes.

The representation of the Jewish identity is set in the context of interaction with the majority, the restrictions and the challenges. Matilda, although twice in love with Muslim men, she is lighting the Shabbes candles and keeps a mezuza at her door. It´s a feeling of being fully aware of who you are, in a nonstrident yet careful way. It is a sense of measure forgotten sometimes.

I am not familiar with a nuanced local representations of Jews within the Turkish society, but would definitely interested to explore more, but as for now, the feedback I´ve read about this film, coming from Jewish sources, was positive.

Personally, I´ve found the play of the actors very good, especially Rașel, particularly towards the end of the movie, as she is fighting against depression, set following her traumatic birth and first almost two decades of life.

With an interesting story and a lot of Ladino references, Kulüp can be a good introduction to a less known Jewish episode. Recommended for a good binge watching, but be ready for a lot of drama.

Diary of a Crisis

 

One of the most dramatic consequences of applying the absurd BDS directions in academia, aiming at excluding Israeli academics from world universitities, is to deprive the world to fathom the diversity of the Israeli society. Israeli academics, and many prestigious intellectuals, do share very leftist positions, based of an old socialist and communist mindset, often shared by the founders of the state. Many of them do have a moderate position towards Palestinian statehood aims and are very critical towards the mixture of messianism and politics struggling to become mainstream. Many of them are also very critical of Netanyahu´s policies.

Prestigious historian Saul Friedländer observed with fine knowledge and detail, the tumultous last year, noticing the political events and mass street movements stirred by the judicial reform initiated by Netanyahu for self-survival reasons. While noticing the actors and stages of the crisis, he is smoothly sharing personal memories - including of a meeting with Golda Meir - as well as personal observations about the many rifts of the relationship between Askenazim and Mizrahim - some of the analysis of Shas as an identity political movement are very pertinent. +

It´s obvious that Friedländer, who is a resident of the USA, do have a clear bias and takes many of his information from left-wing publications such as Haaretz. On the other hand, he belongs to an intellectual tradition that do have his own mentality limitations, but whose clarity and secularist tendecies are very important for the democratic functioning of Israel. An Israel in turmoil who is still struggling to get out of a crisis that seems without an end in sight - the diary ends shortly before October.

Rating: 3.5 stars