Tag Archives: Jewish stereotypes

August 19, 2013 · 8:43 am

What Is A Jew?

by Amy Krakovitz,(Charlotte, NC)

With the diversity of students we have at the Consolidated High School of Jewish Studies in Charlotte, NC, I got a variety of answers to the question that I asked my 8th and 9th grade students: “What is a Jew?”

One Orthodox student adamantly claimed that a Jew was someone whose mother was Jewish. Other students, whose mothers weren’t Jewish, were equally as adamant about their own Jewish identity. The discussion that ensued was lively, animated, and expressive.

“What if you don’t believe in God,” I asked?

Some students were sure that it didn’t matter. The same Orthodox boy, however, was positive that you couldn’t be Jewish if you didn’t believe in God.

“But what if your mother is Jewish and you don’t believe in God?” I asked him.

He couldn’t answer.

“You see, it’s not that simple,” I replied.

What I wanted from them, I explained, was what they thought, not what someone else taught them.

Are you still a Jew if you don’t observe certain mitzvot? Can you be a Jew if you cheat, hurt, or even murder someone? And what is it in your soul, that essential spark, that makes you a Jew?

Underlying all the questions was my need to answer that one question: what is it that makes a Yiddishe neshama?

Here are my students’ responses:

Who is a Jew? For the past 4,000 years, we have believed that someone is Jewish according to their mother. But let me ask you something: If your mother is a lesbian, are you automatically one as well? If your mother is Democrat, can you not be a Republican? Of course not! You are whatever you believe. That’s all religion is: belief and faith.

Belief is not passed on by genes. Neither is faith. These are the result of who you are, your God-given soul. So if you like the color blue, but it’s not allowed because your mother likes red, is that something you’ll stand for? Most people say no. Yet they still say your religion is based off what your mother is.

I believe that religion is your faith in God, your personal connection with Adonai. We’re not cells that are 100% identical to the parent. The connection you have with God is yours, and yours to keep. It’s not based on your parents’ beliefs. It’s because it’s YOUR belief. – Sam Cohen, Weddington, NC (9th Grade)

A Jew is defined by his or her personal beliefs. If a person believes in the core values of Judaism, such as one God, the Torah, etc., she is defined as a Jew. It does not matter what  her parents are, although if someone is raised Jewish that may affect her values and beliefs. If someone is raised one religion, no matter how extreme, and she decides she would rather practice Judaism, then she becomes Jewish and she is entitled to Jewish rights.

You cannot inherit a religion, so you cannot say that you are automatically whatever religion your parents are, especially just your mother. You can be a Jew no matter how much or little you practice or study your religion. You do not have to go to temple every day, or cover your head, or eat kosher. A religion is defined by beliefs.

A Jew is also not defined by values. A horrible person can still claim to be Jewish, even if she doesn’t exactly follow Jewish values; she may have a different interpretation, although an outsider’s view of Judaism might be affected by her behavior.

A Jew is defined by beliefs, and can interpret the values and teachings of Judaism in her own way and still remain Jewish. — Isabelle Katz, Charlotte, NC (9th grade)

What is a Jew? Jews can be defined by many things, such as physical features, morals and a common belief in a single God. What one word can describe Judaism? Purity. In Judaism we try to keep our actions pure through the morals that are taught to us. I think that the most important part of Judaism is its moral component and the moral values we espouse. They create, define, and shape a lot of our day-to-day decisions. I do not think that Judaism is the same for everyone, but for me the one word would be “pure,” though for someone else it might be different. — Roy Kasher, Charlotte, NC (9th grade)

A Jew is not restricted by the jewelry they wear,

A Jew is not defined as someone who keeps kosher, or wears a kippah,

A Jew is not limited to having dark hair and a big nose,

A Jew is not labeled by stereotypes,

A Jew is simply a person. — Ivy Gold, Charlotte, NC (9th grade)

What is a Jew? This is a very controversial question, as it can be argued many different ways. Different people may have varying opinions as to how Judaism is defined. Some would say that religion is acquired through inheritance, and people take on the beliefs of their parents. Others would say that one’s religion is determined through actions and practices such as prayer, eating habits, or other religious rituals. In my opinion, the second group is correct. Though some may be Jews from birth and practice Judaism throughout life, others may simply hold an “empty title.” These people may identify themselves as Jewish without taking part in the values and expectations of the religion. True Jews may not follow every word of the Torah, or eat kosher, but if they stay involved and connected to God through prayer and righteous values, they can proudly and rightly call themselves Jewish. — Olivia Weidner, Charlotte, NC  (9th grade)

I was brought up by a mother who claims relation to the ancient tribe of Levi and traces her origin back to Ukrainian Jews who fled to America because of the Russian pogroms. I was brought up by a man of Christian birth, although he was given a Jewish name and circumcision; his mother urged him not to marry my mother, a Jew. But he did and he converted.

The question of “who is a Jew” brings ups the conundrum of whether Judaism is a faith or an ethnicity. I believe Judaism to be a faith. I do not believe religion can be passed down through family lines, but believe, instead, that faith is taught by the parents and passed down through tradition and not passed down through ritual. To be Jewish, you do not have to light candles on Shabbat, or go to temple. Most Fridays, I dine across from a mother whose laptop is set up and being typed on, and I lay my plate on a table covered with papers from both our lives.

Judaism is a system of belief. And belief is all that’s required to be Jewish.– Sally Parker, Waxhaw, NC (8th grade)

A Jew is a person who actively practices Judaism and holds all of the traditions of the Jewish culture. They believe in one God and practice the traditions. Judaism is a religion where people practice their faith and have a personal relationship with God.– Isaac Turtletaub, Charlotte, NC (8th grade)

Do you identify as a Jew?

Yes? You’re a Jew.

No? You’re not. — Leah Kwiatkowski, Harrisburg, NC (8th grade)

A Jew is a holy person who follows the holy teachings of God and has a connection to Jerusalem as the holy homeland of the Jewish people. Jews are required to do as God commands them. I believe Jews were the chosen ones by God and are metaphorically “the branches of God,” for they take what God showed and taught them, and they pass it on to future generations.

To be Jewish, your mother must be Jewish. If the mother isn’t Jewish, then the children can’t be Jewish unless they decide to convert.

Judaism is more of a tradition than a religion. We practice the original ways of our ancestors and bring them into our modern world.– Elliot Adler, Charlotte, NC (8th grade)

Judaism is a matrilineal chain of people connected by a shared set of beliefs, values, or communities.

Judaism is so much more than a religion: it’s an ethnicity. Judaism is a word used to describe people with a common heritage.

Jews are technically born Jewish and must be part of a long line of people to be ethnically classified as “Jewish.”

However, people convert to Judaism all the time; does this mean that they are not Jewish?   — Sam Friedman, Charlotte, NC (8th grade)

Amy Krakovitz, an instructor in “Writing for Good” at the Consolidated High School for Jewish Studies, Charlotte, NC, worked with her 8th and 9th grade students to prepare these essays for publication. They are reprinted here with the permission of the students and their parents.

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May 16, 2011 · 7:28 am

Writing Wharton’s Wrong

by Lev Raphael (Okemos, MI)

Singing about marriage, two of Steven Sondheim’s characters in A Little Night Music condemn it for inflicting so much pain: “Every day a little death….every day a little sting.”

I felt a bit like like that in college, not because I was married, but because I was an English major.  Time after time, I’d find a book I was reading and enjoying stung me because of an anti-Semitic portrait.  There was Meyer Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby, a Jewish antiques dealer in The Golden Bowl, and many more, too many to remember, but I met them at every turn in English and American books.

I understood that the authors were products of their society and a western culture that was ingrained with Jew-hatred, but it still pushed me out of the book the way a plot implausibility can make you lose faith in a movie.  I don’t remember ever not finishing a book that had a Jewish stereotype or slur, but I’d continue reading under a cloud.

Perhaps most disturbing of all for me was Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth.  I had first read her Pulitzer-prize winner The Age of Innocence and fallen in love, so I worked my way devotedly through her oeuvre in paperback.  The House of Mirth was my favorite then and still is now.  It’s a stunning book about the vanity of human wishes and the damage a superficial culture can inflict on those who won’t play by its rules. Reading it for the first time in my senior year at Fordham, I was in awe: Wharton displayed an uncanny understanding of the power of shame to control behavior and crush hope.  The novel was so beautifully written, so witty and sharp-edged, such an indictment of Gilded Age New York.

And very unpleasant to read–as a Jew.  Every time the Jewish financier Simon Rosedale appeared in the book, I winced.  He was showy, loud, vulgar, spoke bad English, and came off as a buffoon when he wasn’t insidious.  Gentiles loved his money but rightly despised him, and his eye was always on the main chance.

Wharton actually pays special attention to his eyes the first time he appears, telling us he had “small sidelong eyes which gave him the air of appraising people as if they were bric-a-brac.”  How ironic that Wharton’s contempt for Jews is projected onto him, turning him into someone for whom others are merely items to assess and purchase.

Simon Rosedale does show a less mercenary side, but it’s always connected to his fierce drive to get ahead by any means necessary.  In the same way that assertive women today are seen by some people as bitches, Rosedale wanting success the way any other American might is condemned as vulgar and almost disgusting.

I hadn’t written much fiction of my own at the time, but in the following years, Jewish themes would predominate.  I often found myself returning to writers who inspired me in college, writers like Henry James and Lawrence Durrell who were hardly philo-Semitic, and yes, Edith Wharton.  The sting became duller each time, but it never went away.

And then a few years ago, perhaps because I’d been reading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern again, an idea hit me.  What if I did a Stoppard?  What if I told Edith Wharton’s story in The House of Mirth from Rosedale’s perspective, entered his mind, his past, his dreams, his fears? What if I made him a person, in other words, and not a stereotype?

Rosedale in Love was born, and it bore me along with it on massive amounts of reading about The Gilded Age and turn-of-the-century New York, all of it deepening my appreciation of what Wharton had accomplished in the rest of her novel.  And helping me let go of my regrets for the ways in which Wharton had lost the chance to make Simon Rosedale a real human being.

Because she left me a whole book to write.

Lev Raphael is a prize-winning pioneer in American-Jewish literature, and has been publishing fiction and nonfiction about the Second Generation since 1978. The author of twenty books which have been translated into almost a dozen languages, he has spoken about his work in hundreds of venues on three continents. His fiction and creative non-fiction are widely taught at American colleges and universities, and his work has been the subject of numerous academic articles, papers, and books. A former public radio book show host and newspaper columnist, he can be found on the web at http://www.levraphael.com.  He blogs on books for The Huffington Post and reviews for the on-line literary magazine Bibliobuffet.com.

You can check out his latest book, the Jewish historical novel Rosedale in Love, at http://www.levraphael.com/rosedale.html

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