I BOOKS
-40. -40.- -4.-
You're probably
getting a lot
of advice
these days.
JEWISH TELEVISION
MAGAZINE
FOCUS THIS MONTH:
4 NOP
RDUENTURE
IN ISRREL
Here's some
that will last you
a lifetime.
SUNDAYS
4 P.M.
The Association for
Retarded Citizens wants
to make sure that if you
plan' to have children,
they turn out to be
happy, healthy children.
So we suggest you
follow four basic rules
before you conceive a
child:
1. Follow habits of
proper nutrition.
2. Avoid alcohol and
tobacco.
3. Beware of too much
exposure to X-rays.
4. Ask your doctor
about genetic
counseling if mental
retardation of
unknown cause has
occurred in your
families.
For more good advice,
call or write your local
unit of ARC, the
Association for Retarded
Citizens.
and
TUESDAYS
8 P.M.
CONTINENTAL
CABLE TV 11
Oak Park, Southfield,
Lathrup Village, West Bloomfield
MONDAYS
4:30 P.M.
and
WEDNESDAYS
7:30 P.M.
BOOTH COMMUNICATIONS
CABLE TV 11
Jewish Association for
Retarded Citizens
11288 W. 12 Mile Rd.
Southfield, Ml 48016
(313) 551-1650
Beverly Hills, Birmingham,
Bingham Farms, Franklin Village
Brought to you by the Jewish Welfare Federation of Detroit
Produced by the Council of Jewish Federations
4
Help build the'arc
Association for Retarded Citizens
Learn how to take
better care of yourself
and your family;
call Red Cross.
833-4440
American
Red Cross
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l M
co
7g eblit,cdSvee r Nt , i isci engofcTohui n s cr■I iiewspaper
Ppinev Km R 1987
We'll Help.
Will You?
New Novel Addresses
Jewishness, Parenting
HAVIVA KRASNER
T
he recent success of
books that investigate
spiritualism, self-
improvement and how to find
life's meaning indicates that
many people are seeking to
add a religious dimension to
their lives.
Material and professional
success, and the accompany-
ing prestige, are just not
fulfilling enough for many
people. Some are joining
growing movements that
stress the spiritual, such as
the Jewish baal teshuvah
movement.
A baal teshuvah is a former-
ly non-observant Jew who
becomes observant. Most
baalei teshuvah are young
people who were raised in
non-religious homes, some-
how came in contact with
religious Jews and accepted
their way of life. Sometimes
these youth become attracted
to Judaism after being ap-
proached by a member of a
yeshivah (Jewish religious
school) in an Israeli street and
offered a place to stay for a
few days.
This phenomenon can cause
major rifts within the family.
Parents with antagonistic
feelings toward Judaism, who
have raised their children
likewise, suddenly hear that
their child has become a
religious Jew. How do they
deal with it? This is the focus
of Anne Roiphe's latest novel,
titled Loving Kindness.
The book confronts not on-
ly the difficulties encountered
by parents of baalei teshuvah
in coping with their children's
decisions to become more
religious, but in general the
problems most parents face in
trying to accept their
children's lifestyles when dif-
ferent from their own.
The book, Roiphe's seventh,
delves into relationships —
specifically that between an
avid feminist mother who has
rejected most of her Judaism
and her formerly undirected
and suicidal daughter who
has entered an ultra-
Orthodox Chasidic yeshivah
in Jerusalem.
When Annie Johnson
receives a letter from her
daughter Andrea saying that
she has changed her name to
Sarai and plans to marry a
boy the yeshivah has chosen
for her, Annie goes to Israel to
investigate and hopefully
retrieve her daughter.
Andrea's decision to join the
yeshivah is ironic. Her
mother had always stressed to
her the importance of being a
free spirit, encouraging her
capricious lifestyle both emo-
tionally and financially.
However, Andrea longed for
discipline and rules. She
rebelled by giving up her in-
dependence for the highly
restrictive lifestyle at the
yeshivah.
Although Annie's plan does
not succeed, her ultimate
decision is a monumental
step for her, and an admirable
development of character that
could be an inspiration for all
parents having difficulty let-
ting go.
Annie is the narrator of the
novel, so the reader sees and
understands the mother's
dilemma through her own
eyes. Loving Kindness is also
recommendable reading for
adolescents because it can
help them sympathize with a
parental point-of-view. But
even more, it provides parents
with some valuable lessons in
child-rearing.
Religiously, Roiphe provides
no solutions. The mother is so
far to the left, and the
daughter so far to the right,
that there is no apparent mid-
dle ground. Both are being
dishonest with themselves:
Annie, by denying her own
heritage; and Andrea, by de-
nying the modern world and
her own individuality.
Annie's series of dreams,
featuring an ancient rabbi
who reprimands her, reveals
her feelings of guilt, sug-
gesting that maybe she has
gone too far in her religious
open-mindedness. However,
Andrea's decision to join the
yeshivah is also extremely
radical, and Roiphe does not
create any other character for
the reader to try to emulate
religiously, leaving the reader
wondering what Roiphe's own
religious philosophy is.
Whether intentional or not,
Loving Kindness is not a
tendentious novel, and it is up
to the reader to draw his or
her own conclusions about
what a proper moderate
stance would be.
Perhaps Roiphe put a bit of
her own past into the
character of Annie, since she
once was a proud secular Jew.
But she became more reli-
gious and conscious of her
heritage, inspiring her two
write Generation Without
Memory, her non-fiction book
about her own return to a
more religious Judaism.
Loving Kindness is absorb-
ing, moving and thought-
provoking for Jews and non-
Jews alike.
Copyright 1987, JTA, Inc.