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The Half Jewish Bookby Daniel Klein and Freke Vuijst |
Judy Stanton (11/20/11): With interfaith marriage a
part of my life and my children's lives, I decided to read about "half Jews" and fell upon this book.
It was a quick read, but too much like a people magazine profile of "who's who" in the half-Jewish world.
More interesting to me were the stories about finding personal identity. In some cases, lack of family acceptance
by either side caused alienation; in other cases, events in the individuals lives caused them to search out their
roots; and in some cases, people found out late in life about their Jewish roots. Most interesting is that the
number of half Jews in America already outnumbers full Jews in the "under 11" age group. The subject of who
is "Jewish" or not was addressed, and some of the challenges faced by Muslim-Jews, African American Christian-Jews,
Mexican-Jews and other interesting combinations! Somewhat stereotypical....like the interest in education,
food and being to see all sides of an issue being "Jewish" qualities...it also points to these people wanting
to be identified by something more than their family's religious background.
Rating: ***
