arts & entertainment
In Search Of Being Jewish
Author explores meaning of Jewish identity.
Jewish "agnostic by default" looks for God.
Steve Lipman
New York Jewish Week
Steve Lipman
New York Jewish Week
A
t first glance, a children's
book about Crypto-Jews in
the Southwest, which tells
the story of descendants of Spanish
Inquisition survivors who clandestinely
pass along some Jewish traditions with-
in the religious freedom of the United
States, would seem to have little in
common with the adult life of Theodore
Ross.
A Jewish New Yorker — Ross was
born there and lives there now after a
notable detour along the way — he has
worked as a journalist for some high-
powered publications.
But a notice about Sandy Eisenberg
Sasso's Abuelita's Secret Matzahs a few
years ago drew Ross' interest.
He sent away for the book, saw a
similarity between Abuelita — and her
"I lived a minor sort of double life,"
ilk whose claims to being part of the
Theodore Ross writes.
Jewish community are open to question
— and his own one-time life as a hid-
den Jew in the South and started asking
questions.
pital had recruited her to open a medi-
Are they Jewish? Is he?
cal practice," Ross writes.
Ross turned his spiritual quest into
His mother, the child of a Jew who
a book, Am I a Jew: Lost Tribes, Lapsed
had fled Nazi Germany, didn't want to
Jews and One Man's Search for Himself
stick out in her Bible Belt surround-
(Hudson Street Press), which docu-
ings. So, as far as the family's neighbors
ments the 18 months he spent looking
and Ross' mother's colleagues knew, the
inward and outward, meeting with
Rosses were not Jews.
actual Crypto-Jews in New Mexico,
"My new faith was a ruse?' Ross
Orthodox Jews in Monsey, N.Y., a very
writes. "I never formally converted ...
Reform rabbi in Kansas City, a
but if anyone asked, I
Jewish genealogist in the U.S.,
was instructed by my
and Jews of various stripes in
mother to say I was
the States and Israel.
Unitarian. She also
rh eodore Ross
He picked people and
required me to keep
A M I
places, he says, that would
these sectarian machi-
help him tell "an American
nations secret from my
ew?
story" — about Jewish iden-
father?' an identified but
tity and self-identification
not observant Jew, "who
in an American Jewish com-
was still living in New
munity where, according to
York and who would
recent studies, about 60 per-
have filed a court order
cent of Jews in this country
demanding custody if
"I was 9 years old
don't officially affiliate with
he [had] the slightest
when my mother
a denomination of Judaism
notion of what she was
but consider themselves "just forced m e to convert
up to."
to Christ ianity," are
Jewish?'
Young Ross was
the first words of
As Ross, 40, does.
enrolled at the Christ
Ross' bo ok.
Now.
Episcopal Day School,
"I was 9 years old when my
where he studied "the
mother forced me to convert
Bible attended weekly
to Christianity?' are the first words of
church services, received Communion
Ross' book.
"and even sang in the choir?'
Summers, he spent with his father
His parents were divorced; he lived
much of the year with his mother. "We
back in New York.
had just moved from New York City to
a small Southern town whose local hos-
Am I A Jew? on page 50
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I
f, as President Kennedy famously
said, "a journey of a thousand miles
must begin with a single step?' Eric
Weiner's journey of tens of thousands of
miles began with a single question.
A best-selling author, a "gastronomi-
cal" Jew, a "rationalist?' an "agnostic
by default?' a one-time Hebrew school
student who had escaped from that edu-
cational experience with his existential
doubts intact — in other words, some-
one pretty close to the profile of many
American Jews — Weiner found himself
shivering under a flimsy hospital gown
in an emergency room a few years ago.
He had a health scare: off-the-scale
pain. Lying on a gurney in a "sterile"
examination room after the standard
battery of tests, an IV "dangling from one
A "determined" traveler, Eric Weiner
arm?' he was alone with his thoughts.
journeyed
around the world in his
"Is it cancer? Something worse? What, I
search
for
God.
wondered, is worse than cancer?"
Then a nurse walked in. She, Weiner
concluded, was from the Caribbean or
West Africa. She leaned over to draw
says Weiner, 53, leaning back on a couch
some blood, sensed his fear and then
at an Ethiopian cafe a few blocks from
spoke into his ear: "Have you found your
his home in New York City, but they
God yet?"
gripped his curiosity and would make a
Weiner hadn't.
better book.
He hadn't thought about it.
A former correspondent for NPR who
But since that day — the tests found
has reported from more than three dozen
a benign cause for his pain: gas — he's
countries, Weiner is a 21st-century suc-
thought about it a lot.
cessor to Mark Twain, who brought an
That anonymous nurse's
attitude of respectful cyni-
question set Weiner on an
cism to his travel writings.
international journey, a
Man Seeks God combines the
spiritual scavenger hunt to
self-mocking silliness of Dave
find a God he wasn't sure
Barry and the earnest open-
existed in the first place.
ness of Yossi Klein Halevi,
In Man Seeks God: My
the Brooklyn-born writer
Flirtations with the Divine
who spent two years around
the Holy Land with devout
(Twelve), Weiner describes
Christians and Muslims in At
his year-long series of
self-discovery pilgrimages
the Entrance to the Garden of
that took him to a Catholic
Eden: A Jew's Search for God
homeless shelter in the
with Christians and Muslims
Bronx, a Sufi camp "deep
in the Holy Land.
"I'm not interested
into California pot coun-
Each chapter is num-
in travel for travel's
try?' a Buddhist meditation sake," says Weiner.
bered with what looks like a
highway-route marker; each
center in Katmandu, a
Raelian gathering in Las
chapter begins with what
Vegas (they hold that life on this planet
looks like a personal ad. For the Jewish
was scientifically created by a species of
chapter: "Tired of strangers who don't get
extraterrestrials), a Tao retreat in China
me. Looking to come home but not sure
(they embrace a holistic view of the
where that is. Are you the One? Foodies
universe), a Wicca "witch" near Seattle,
a plus?'
a shamanic workshop in Maryland and,
For Weiner, whose earlier book, The
finally, a kabbalistic school in Israel.
Geography of Bliss, documented his
They are, admittedly, a quirky, sub-
search for the "happiest places in the
jective, largely off-the-beaten-track-of-
religion bunch of faiths to investigate,
Man Seeks God on page 51
JN
December 20 • 2012
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