To Life!
THE SCENE
A Journe
A West Bloomfield native ckaws on his own
Israel experience to shape new novel.
Robin Schwartz
Special to the Jewish News
s
Aaron Hamburger and
his brother Sheldon
of West Bloomfield
Above:
Sheri Jankelovitz of West Bloomfield
attended the lecture.
Seymour Blustein of Farmington Hills and
Frank Mandlebaum of West Bloomfield
itting in the back seat of his par-
ents' car on the way to the
Birmingham Temple in:
Farmington Hills, 32-year-old novelist
Aaron Hamburger suddenly had a flash-
back to his childhood. "I was thinking,
`Twenty years ago, when I was sitting in
the same position in the back seat, would
I have imagined I'd be doing what I'm
doing now?'" he said.
"Probably not. It was a nice feeling."
Hamburger, who grew up in West
Bloomfield, is celebrating the recent
release of his first novel, Faith For
Beginners. Proud family members and
friends were among a group of about 50
people at the temple who attended a book
signing and discussion about
Hamburger's summer 2000 Israel trip that
inspired the novel's storyline.
"It took about three years of work and
self-doubt and labor," Hamburger said of
his writing process.
Faith For Beginners follows a Jewish
family from Michigan on a pilgrimage to
Israel in the midst of the country's tense
political climate. During the trip, the fam-
ily undergoes its own spiritual and emo-
.
tional journey.
Hamburger's suburban housewife char-
acter, Helen Michaelson, hopes visiting
Israel will inspire her rebellious 22-year-
old son, Jeremy, to reconnect with his
faith.
"The character of Mrs. Michaelson was
really me," Hamburger revealed during his
talk. _ •
The book, which was released Oct. 4,
has won praise and attention. "Aaron
Hamburger takes a deceptively simple sit-
uation — an American family visiting
Israel — and spins a rich, complex, often
profound comedy about religion, sex, pol-
itics and love said author Christopher
Bram.
0
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"It seems like a really character-
driven story as well as being about a
place," said Marcia Mumbrue of West
Bloomfield, who attended the Oct. 19 lec-
ture. "I really like books like that."
Hamburger is a graduate of Hillel Day
School of Metropolitan Detroit in
Farmington Hills, Detroit Country Day in
Beverly Hills and the University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor. He is the author
of a short-story collection called The View
from Stalin's Head. It helped him win the -
Rome Prize from the American Academy
of Arts and Letters. This year, he's living at
the American Academy in Rome, working
on his next novel, set in contemporary
Berlin.
Hamburger says Judaism has been a
regular theme-in his writing thus far. "We
have such a tradition of diversity and peo-
ple arguing and debating with each other,
so I feel that gives me a way in which to
show different arguments and let readers
decide what they agree and don't agree
with."
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O
0 En
CD
From left to right:
Marcia Mumbre and Judy Berne,
both of West Bloomfield
Pera Kane of Southfield and
Jeanette Pomish of Farmington Hills
Sheldon Hamburger's wife, Eva,
and Lea Luger of West Bloomfield
ni
December 1 . 2005
27