People Of Da Book

Author "raps" her way to JCC of
Washtenaw County Book Festival.

Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News

Ann Arbor

on Stewart is. Adam Sandler
is. Superman and Spiderman
are. Even Curious George is.
"When you're a Heebster, you don't
have to work hard to be cool; you
just have to be proud to be a Jew,"
says journalist Lisa Alcalay Klug, the
author of Cool Jew (Andrew MacMeel
Publishing; $12.99), a new how-to
book that is a cross between The
Preppy Handbook, The Jewish Catalog
and the Dummies/Idiots Guides.
The freelance writer, a University
of California-Berkley grad who based
her text on newspaper articles she
wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle
and later the Forward, will discuss her
humorous outlook during the Jewish
Book Festival planned by the Jewish
Community Center of Washtenaw
County (many of the festival's authors
overlap with those of Detroit's Jewish
Book Fair). Klug's session is planned
for 7 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 16.
"My talk tells about the trends I
was noticing and how they led to the
articles I wrote explains Klug.
"I do a visual presentation, so it
includes many images in the book and
other images that help tell the story
of how the book came about. I share
a little of my family history and how
that impacted my Jewish identity"
Klug often takes Jewish cultural ste-
reotypes — from food to clothing —
and relates them to wider fads. If there's
a unifying beat to the tone, it's rap.
The book can be seen as part of
the wave of hipster Judaism that has
produced the irreverent Heeb and Guilt
and Pleasure magazines, JDub Records
and reggae singer Matisyahu. Cool
Jews, however, also seeks to catalog the
trend.
The 235-page soft-cover book, with
its spot-blue illustrations and crowded
layout, includes cute lists such as
"Heeb vs. Dweeb," the "Heebster
Challah Fame" and "Super-Powered
Heebsters." But it also goes beyond the
humorous, with detailed illustrations
of lifecycle events, like an explanation
of "Betrothals According to the Laws

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of Moshe and Yisrael."
So does this mean Cool Jews are
religious? For Klug, who was raised
traditional but now considers her-
self an "Ashkefardic Neo-Chasidic
Carlebachian Shomeret Shabbat
Heebster," the answer is yes.
Perhaps that's not such a surprising
answer coming from a descendant
of the famous Zionist Rabbi Yehuda
Alkalai of Sarajevo.
"I've been keeping Shabbat for 15
years and spent two of them writ-
ing Cool Jew. My journey was part of
the research as was going to festivals,
attending parties and concerts, hunt-
ing online, reading all kinds of materi-
als and doing interviews.
"I identify all the things that feel
Jewish to me — vegetables, animals,
letters of the alphabet and even cars
— but may not appear Jewish to other
people at first glance.
"I have more than 40 events sched-
uled to discuss my book, and it's won-
derful," the author says. 0

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Amy Klein of JTA contributed to this
article.

The Jewish Book Festival at
the Jewish Community Center
of Washtenaw County, 2395
Birch Hollow Dr., in Ann Arbor,
runs Nov. 5-17 and includes free
speaker sessions with additional
charges for meals. For more
information and a complete
schedule, log on to the Web site
www.jccannarbor.org or call
(734) 971-0990.

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