Well, Shalom!

It took me less than 72 hours to read Shalom Auslander's 2007 memoir, Foreskin's Lament.

It's one of the strongest books I've ever read. And not just because it strikes so close to home. There's that, of course. Auslander and I had a similar childhood.

But more importantly, Auslander has a hallmark style that stuck with me after I finished the book. His turn of phrase is truly excellent. Conversations with a God he imagines in the image of his own volatile, uncompromising father are hilarious and refreshing. Each chapter is crammed with picturesque descriptions of situations that should be sad to read. Instead, he's made them original and funny. These days, faced with a backlash against "misery memoirs," it's common for writers to try the humorous approach, but it often falls flat and reads as desperate - and decidedly unfunny.

Auslander, however, leaves those amateur humorists in the dust. He relays the absurdity of his experiences and his perceptions without ramming that same absurdity down your throat. For someone pinpointing neuroses, the writing itself is decidedly clear-headed.

Obviously I have my own issues with Judaism or I would not be writing about it on Blogger. I think it'd be interesting to read a similar story from the perspective of a girl raised the same way as Auslander was. Orthodox Judaism at its fundamentalist extreme can be quite a hostile place for a little girl, and it gets no better with puberty or, some may argue, adulthood if you choose to stay with the flock. The religious right is going to hate me for saying this, but there's not much of a difference between the fundamentals of Judaism and the fundamentals of Islam. Auslander acknowledges this similarity, but I think it's even more pronounced for a woman.

In the mean time, Foreskin's Lament is a brave commentary on belief by a man who was cast out of his community for refusing to conform with its strictest laws. I was unable to find any part of this book lagging, which is unusual to say the least. I recommend Foreskin's Lament wholeheartedly, especially to young adults raised with a heavy religious influence who are now trying to decide what they will believe as grownups about religion and about God.

A Side Note

It's come to my attention that some people have been harassed over material that I've posted on this blog.

Message to the parties participating in the harassment: Knock it off.

I'm happy to address any concerns someone might have about anything I've written. If you have something you would like to say to me, feel free to contact me directly. Keep in mind that I will record any such correspondence. I've long since learned the wisdom of getting anything that might be objectionable on tape, and of creating more than one copy. Emails are always backed up. If you are inclined to say anything of a needlessly crude or violent nature, please rest assured that I have proof of whatever you've said.

Everything is controversial to somebody. When we speak our minds, we must be prepared to back up our statements. I am prepared to do this. Are you?

Does it Matter if Sebastian Horsley is an anti-Semite?

Victoria Coren in The Observer on 2 Sept 2007:

"A few weeks ago, I was due to have dinner with writer and roue Sebastian Horsley. Are you familiar with Horsley? He briefly wrote a sex column for The Observer, but the readers didn't like it and (this being a democratic newspaper) he was asked to take his pen elsewhere. When the day came, I rang him to suggest meeting in Belsize Park, a leafy area of north London.

"'I can't bear Belsize Park,' yawned Horsley. 'It's full of Jews.'"

Ms. Coren was so offended that she decided not to interview Mr. Horsley. When I interviewed him myself, I asked him to respond to her article.

"Sebastian, you're not an anti-Semite, are you?" I wondered.

Sebastian Horsley leant in the direction of my tape recorder and exclaimed,"Death to Jews! ...now you have it on tape."

For those not in the know, Sebastian Horsley is a British artist more notorious for various excesses and provocative statements of bigotry than he is for his artwork. He's built an entire career on people's strong reactions to him.

Mr. Horsley went on to say, "If I'd known she was Jewish, I'd have been even ruder!"

For someone who doesn't like Jews, he certainly has a hard time spotting us, I thought.

I continued conducting the interview. I was curious to see whether he'd elaborate. But when the tape recorder was turned off, I tried to broach the subject with him again. At this point, if he'd said these things in order to stay in character, I wanted to give him the opportunity to tell me so.

"Sebastian, you know, about Victoria Coren's column -" I began.

"DEATH TO JEWS!" spat Mr. Horsley a second time. Then he turned away, indicating that the subject was closed.

Needless to say, I never did publish the interview. I had wanted to know if Mr. Horsley meant what he said, but I soon realized that it didn't matter.

I began to think a lot about how and why bigotry works.

In this case, Sebastian Horsley gets away with all kinds of cringe-worthy rhetoric by using what I call the 'lady, you knew I was a snake' disclaimer. By building a character based entirely on who he can shock, Mr. Horsley lets you know up front that he's not responsible if he happens to offend you. He can't help it, that's just who he is.

Sebastian Horsley hopes to sell himself to the public as a zany but loveable 'dandy,' a clown who doesn't really mean the things he says.

And certainly Mr. Horsley has the right to push freedom of speech as far as he can take it.

But since his autobiography, Dandy in the Underworld, is now being sold by a top ranking American publishing company, assuming his publishers have done their job, this puts him directly in the public eye. His provocative statements raise some serious questions.

Questions about the the socio-political impact of a random satirist who comes into the country during an election year and turns a profit for himself by pushing the nation's hot buttons.

Nothing is guaranteed to set American passions on edge the way bias speech does.

It's a country that has become polarized by its politics and by issues that are volatile enough on their own - but can also act as red herrings. An example is the way the Federal Marriage Amendment, proposed in 2004, helped distract the populace from the larger issues in that year's election: war; loss of civil liberties; the economy; and the environment.

The lines Mr. Horsely will toss out in America will upset many people. The rest will shrug it off and say that anyone who got upset can't take a joke. And this is how the division occurs. The Jena 6 controversy also started as a joke.

Therefore, whether Mr. Horsley means the things he says is not the point. His throwaway comments have the potential to keep the public divided and distracted while so much more is at stake.

A Wandering Jew in Nebraska

"Your jewellery is just lovely," the fat woman said to my friend Shelly. "Do you really make it by yourself?"

My friend nodded, placing a necklace gently back in its case.

"You sellin' lots of it?" the woman wanted to know.

"Not really," Shelly said, glancing down as the dog chased the cat around the kitchen table and knocked over a glass of milk. She winced when her oversized two year old toddled over to the split mess. "Let mommy get that, honey." She sighed. "I don't know where I'd sell these pieces. I can't seem to find the time to do much more than make them."

"Didn't you say you were from New York?" the fat woman asked her. "You should take your jewellery back home and sell it to all those rich Jews who live there."

My face darkened.

The fat woman settled her eyes on me. "Everythin' all right?"

Before I could answer her, Shelly jumped in.

"She's Jewish," she said, gesturing toward me.

The woman's eyes narrowed. "Oh," she murmured.

For the rest of the visit, the fat woman was noticeably chilly whenever I spoke to her.

Right before Shelly 'outed' me, this same woman had been offering to introduce me to her son. She'd mentioned the prospect several times. "He works in your field, dear. You just have to talk to him."

The introduction wasn't my idea. I wasn't even sure that I wanted to meet this woman's son. But I reminded her about it as she was leaving Shelly's house. Mostly to be polite.

"My son is very busy," the fat woman told me primly as she waddled out the door. "I don't think I can give you his contact information."

Shelly saw the woman a few more times, and each time, the woman made some sort of remark to Shelly about Jews. "At first, I thought you were making a big deal out of nothing," Shelly admitted to me. "But the subject of Jews kept coming up."

So here, at Shelly's house in Omaha, was the anti-Semitism my father had warned me to watch for around every corner. I'd always considered him paranoid. This was my first time in Nebraska. The fat woman was a native.

I didn't consider myself a Jew.

"Just because you don't want to be one of us doesn't mean the goyim won't hate you anyway," my father used to tell me.

My father and the people he was so worried about seemed to agree on one thing.

To them, I was a Jew whether I liked it or not. I had no choice in the matter.

I couldn't have been Jewish enough for my father if I'd wanted to try.

And to people like the fat woman, I would never be anything but Jewish.