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After marrying Anthony Astrachan, a Jewish journalist assigned to Moscow, she took a leave from work, although she still did some articles while getting started on her first book, Moscow usan Jacoby, growing up in Okemos, Mich., outside Lansing, sensed untold secrets pulsating through- out her home, and she set out to reveal them. That quest and its impact on her intellect, emotions and relationships fill the pages of Half-Jew (Scribner; $25). The author's fifth book recounts her years raised by practicing Catholic parents and the time after as she discovered that her father's family was hiding its Jewish her- itage. On a mission to learn her genealogy, she also brought to light the gambling compulsion that compromised the successes of her relatives. Conversations. While Jacoby's experiences cer- When Jacoby returned to the tainly are highly personal, they have United States, she continued freelanc- broader appeal than what is unrav- ing for newspapers and magazines and eled by most people tracing their moved on to her other books. In the roots. That's because the Jewish side 1970s, women's issues dominated her of her family includes individuals writing interests. who achieved a level of celebrity — Susan Jacoby, author of "Half-Jew": "One of Jacoby, caught up with touring to great-uncle Harold Jacoby, an the reasons I used the title is that I wanted to speak about Half-Jew, explains how her astronomer whose constellation reclaim that term, which has been used in a upbringing helped mold her into a sec- map fills the ceiling of New York's derogatory sense by so many people." ular Jew and an atheist. Grand Central Terminal, and uncle "My attitude toward religion and Oswald Jacoby, a famous bridge Jewishness are two different things," says Jacoby, now champion. divorced. "If my family history has taught me anything, if "One of the things I like about this book is that it re-cre- the 20th century has taught us anything, it is that there is an ates a period which really seems like ancient history to a lot existence as a Jew apart from believing in God, apart from of Jews under 40," says Jacoby, 55. A freelance writer for adhering to Jewish religious practices. It is one of the things national magazines, she also has worked for several newspa- that make Jews different from people [of other religious pers, including the Detroit Free Press. backgrounds]. "My book was an attempt to understand why my father "You are no longer a Catholic when you do not practice and his family behaved the way they did. When I was young Catholicism. I would never describe myself as a half-Catholic and first learned that my father was a Jew, it was the late because Catholic is a word that implies only religious belief 1960s, and I really did not understand the kinds of pressures and religious practice." that existed for previous generations of Jews in America. Jacoby points to the Holocaust as illustrative of the "I knew, for example, that there had been quotas in higher encompassing nature of Judaism. Both the Orthodox and education, but it didn't come alive until I went to those known to have converted met the same tragic fate. Dartmouth and read that correspondence. It told the atti- Half-Jew has been a catalyst to introducing Jacoby to oth- tudes Jews were up against, how pervasive they were and how ers who define themselves as half-Jewish for a variety of fami- socially accepted they were. If people had such thoughts ly reasons and encountering problems because of it. She's also today, they certainly wouldn't put them down in letters and received correspondence from people who have made similar save the letters in files. discoveries about their ancestry and realized that it changed "What I'm proudest of is that this book re-creates the their sense of identity. kind of social situation which led many Jews to do all kinds "One of the reasons I used the title is that I wanted to of things in relation to their heritage. The 1930s, when my reclaim that term, which has been used in a derogatory sense father was a young man, was the high-water mark of anti- by so many people," Jacoby says. "It is often a term that full semitism in the United States." Jews use to put down half-Jews, and it's exclusionary. Jacoby, who attended Catholic school while living in 1**