Review by New York Times Review
ACCORDING TO THE WRITER Leon Wieseltier, the greatest scandal among American Jews is illiteracy. We simply don't know enough - not nearly enough - about who we are and what Jews believe. During lunch at a Washington, D.C., steakhouse more than a decade ago, Wieseltier encouraged my own Torah study and efforts to deepen my faith by admonishing, "Who are we to let this 4,000year-old tradition slip through our fingers?" The journalist Abigail Pogrebin, who interviewed Wieseltier for her book about Jewish identity, "Stars of David," takes his cri de coeur seriously. In "My Jewish Year," she becomes curious about how Jews search for meaning - "Something tugged at me, telling me there was more to feel than I'd felt, more to understand than I knew" - and decides to celebrate all the Jewish holidays of the calendar year, even the ones she's never heard of. She calls herself a "wondering" Jew, and her exploration is lively, funny and honest. It is a relatable, immersive experience that pays homage to "The Year of Living Biblically," by A. J. Jacobs, who writes the foreword. She is a holiday pilgrim uninterested in journeying into Orthodoxy (she attends a Reform synagogue) but intent on reaching others like her, indeed like so many secular American Jews, who "do not connect their Jewish identity to Judaism." Pogrebin lowers her shoulder and goes straight through the Jewish calendar with an emphasis on doing more so that she might feel more. Whether partaking in allnight study before Shavuot (when the Bible says Moses received the Torah at Mount Sinai) or blowing the shofar during Elul, the period of self-reflection and repentance before Rosh Hashana (the Jewish new year), she uncovers the small detail (single malt Scotch is the festive drink of choice for Simchas Torah, when Jews celebrate the annual completion of reading the Torah) and the erotic one: "Sukkot is about shtupping" (Yiddish for both "pushing" and "having sex"), one rabbi tells her, describing the sexual aspect of thrusting the ulav and handling the lemon-like etrogs. More substantively, Pogrebin brings both curiosity and candor to her search. During a fast on the first day of January, the 10th of Tevet, marking the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians, she grabs hold of the larger point of skipping a meal: "Our tradition doesn't care about whether you're sated, but about what you do." This is a day of sacrifice to focus the mind on helping others rather than satisfying ourselves. Pogrebin strives valiantly throughout the year, learning (she interviewed more than 60 rabbis and scholars) and breaking stereotypes of our tradition, as when she blesses a woman sitting next to her at a feminist Seder on Passover. When she falls short, she levels with the reader. Despite her efforts, after the introspection and repentance of the High Holy Days Pogrebin describes feeling bereft. Like Morales from the musical "A Chorus Line," who sings about feeling "nothing," Pogrebin writes: "I didn't feel changed. There was no revelation." The admission underscores a truth about deepening one's faith and observance: It's hard. This is where "My Jewish Year" occasionally disappoints. Pogrebin and I are both journalists and Jewish seekers who have written about the experience. But what happens after the pilgrimage and the book? The spiritual work is just getting started and is fraught with obstacles. Living up to one's faith is never easy, and opening your heart to the spiritual touch takes time. Often what you are supposed to feel and supposed to do get in the way. I think changing your life through faith is more like a ladder than a year of forced ritual. Indeed, defining ritual observance as adhering to a holiday calendar offers a limited perspective. Ask many in the Orthodox community for whom spiritual boredom is a product of rote observance. To me, the essential question is, Where is God? For Pogrebin, as for many Jews, this is a complicated question - she is a believer "not in God as all-powerful, but in God as protector and healer." The question of God is, in my view, one we must spend more time exploring if we are to find meaning and purpose as a community beyond culture and debates over Israel. I prefer going deeper into Jewish liturgy to celebrating the new year for trees. Still, this pilgrimage is a serious and important one. Pogrebin writes poignantly of connecting the dots of Jewish identity for her children through a Yom Kippur prayer or a Passover debate she devised about the extent of Pharaoh's culpability. This is a goal shared by many Jewish parents who want their kids to understand that being Jewish is about more than a gift on Hanukkah or culture alone. we also share a love for the Jewish Sabbath - which she calls a time of "deliberate intermission." Shabbat is for me the most spiritual and peaceful of Jewish holidays, however imperfectly both Pogrebin and I observe it. Reflecting on the lessons of her experience, Pogrebin quotes Rabbi Peter Rubinstein : All of us create "something sacred in our lives." After her Jewish year, Pogrebin may accept or reject aspects of her tradition, but at least she knows more about it. This is what Wieseltier was talking about. He wrote in his book "Kaddish," "Do not overthrow the customs that have made it all the way to you." ? Pogrebin is a holiday pilgrim uninterested in journeying into Orthodoxy, a 'wondering Jew': 'Something tugged at me, telling me there was more to feel than I'd felt.' David GREGORY is the author of "How's Your Faith?" and apolitical analyst for CNN.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [May 5, 2017]
Review by Booklist Review
Recent years have seen a number of books published in which an author commits to following the oft-neglected tenets of a religion think A. J. Jacob's The Year of Living Biblically (2007) or Rachel Held Evans' A Year of Biblical Womanhood (2012). Here, putting her own spin on this formula, Pogrebin charts her own successful and illuminating course through a year of Jewish holidays. This personal but also thoroughly researched book chronicles a year of celebrating 18 Jewish holidays deeply and committedly. Each chapter not only features background information about the holiday and conversations with experts but also the author's sometimes funny and sometimes poignant attempts to do them well. The book is a frank reckoning with the author's own heart, but it's also about the myriad ways Jews relate to each other. Jewish and non-Jewish readers alike will appreciate this thoughtful and intimate journey through a very Jewish year.--Engel, Christine Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Can a 50-something neophyte glean meaning about herself and the world from observing all 18 annual Jewish holidays in a year of personal exploration? Pogrebin (Stars of David) provides a vigorous and moving affirmative answer in this insightful, clever, funny, and compulsively readable volume that will lead newcomers to seek out her other writings. Having grown up with her Jewish identity "a given, not a pursuit," Pogrebin believed that there was more to "feel than I'd felt, more to understand than I knew." She is guided by an eclectic group of teachers, including rabbis from all modern denominations, who provide different lenses through which to view ancient, and sometimes obscure, holidays as relevant today. Her exploration begins with Elul, the Hebrew month that precedes the Jewish New Year, that provides an opportunity to gear up for that holy day with daily self-examinations; typically, her account of trying to learn how to blow a shofar every morning, and integrate her experiment in observance with her family routine, is both humorous and inspiring. Even knowledgeable Jews will find wisdom and new perspectives in these pages. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Journalist Pogrebin (Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish) uses her former column for The Forward as a launching pad to take readers on a spiritual and intellectual journey. Here, she explores the Jewish calendar of holidays and observances (including Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Passover, and Shabbat), combining both cultural and theological explanations with often hilarious autobiographical detail. Each major Jewish holiday is explored in turn, with Pogrebin visiting a variety of synagogues and partnering with rabbis and friends as she fasts, prays, and worships. Throughout this engaging read are funny anecdotes intertwined with deep spiritual reflection. Verdict A modern take on a pilgrim's journal, this account will offer insight for Jewish and non-Jewish readers alike. Readers who are interested in becoming more observant will find it especially worthwhile.-Felicia J. Williamson, Dallas Holocaust Museum © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A Jewish writer takes an educational journey through the feasts and fasts of the religious calendar.Former 60 Minutes producer Pogrebin (One and the Same: My Life as an Identical Twin and What I've Learned About Everyone's Struggle to Be Singular, 2009, etc.) embarked on a rigorous program celebrating, for a full year, the grave holy days and happy holidays her faith prescribes, even those that eschew electronic devices. Living a year by the prayer book, she found personal possibilities and universal implications, beginning her year of learning one autumn with the theological New Year. That was quickly followed by a fast day recognized only by the most observant. Then came a solemn Yom Kippur, a major fast day and the most serious day of reckoning. The author also chronicles days appealing to the senses, days celebrating the reception of the Holy Law, and more minor fasting days. There's a proto-Earth day and a day for masquerading to commemorate an escape from annihilation. For Passover, the author attended a feminist observance. The most important holiday comes not annually but weekly: the day of rest when all manner of work and all mundane concerns are set aside. Regarding the ancient holidays, there are reorchestrated and new ones to commemorate the establishment of the state of Israel, its lost defenders, and the Holocaust. For the book, Pogrebin, a bit of a religious tourist, traveled to various synagogues and consulted scores of rabbis and scholarsthough none in the Orthodox right wing of Judaism. She offers homilies, elaborate similes, and other illustrative figures of speech that will engage like-minded readers. The text, however, won't enjoy ready acceptance with those who do not find room in the tradition for touchy-feely sentiments, such as "mindful walking" or "mindful sweating." The graceful value of Pogrebin's tract is the deep faith and rich vitality evident in her up-close and personal Jewish year. A sentimental journey through Judaic practice and thought. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
