Say “Jewish guilt,” and what comes to mind is Woody Allen or Philip Roth lusting for women who couldn’t tell the difference between a lulav and an etrog. For a more recent example, one needn’t look any further than Larry David.
“Jewish guilt is a cultural commodity that’s been defined by and large by men,” said Ruth Andrew Ellenson. “Jewish women are often the butt of the joke.”
The Los Angeles-based writer has just compiled an anthology where women are not the butt of the joke. “In ‘The Modern Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt,'” said the author, “women have an incredible amount to say. This is a whole stewing pot that hasn’t been explored.”
Ellenson will discuss her book along with several of its contributors as part of Jewish BookFest 2005.
While guilt is the central theme, it really becomes more of a vehicle for the writers to explore how they relate to their Judaism and their Jewish identity.
Take Berkeley-based mystery writer Ayelet Waldman, for example. Waldman was raised in a home where Zionism was their religion. Born in Israel, her family left when she was 2 because her mother was unhappy, but her father always yearned to go back. His dream was for his children to move back to Israel, and until her early 20s, Waldman thought she would live out his dream.
Her essay in the book begins with her showing up at the draft office near Afula shortly after she graduated from college. She already had spent years in Israel and speaks Hebrew almost like a native. She had fantasies about carrying an Uzi and being a spy, yet when the administrator told her the army was accepting fewer women that year due to budget cuts, and added he would be happy to exempt her, she was relieved. She left Israel shortly after.
Fast-forward 20 years later, where Waldman’s guilt about leaving Israel has transformed into a whole different feeling.
She writes how she took her daughter out of a Jewish day school because she cannot bear to see her wave a blue and white construction-paper flag while Ariel Sharon is prime minister.
“Ambivalence toward Zionism is something that this generation is willing to talk about in a way that our parents’ generation never would have,” said the 31-year-old Ellenson.
Another Berkeley-based writer, Rebecca Walker, who identifies mostly as an African American Buddhist, feels guilt over naming her son Tenzin, after the Dalai Lama, even though her Jewish father was pushing for Chaim.
Other writers take on marrying a German, not having children and coming out, to name just a few.
Ellenson, whose father is David Ellenson, a rabbi and the president of Hebrew Union College, said that she’s been preoccupied with issues of Jewish identity ever since she’s been conscious of her own.
“It’s been a long simmering debate that I’ve had with myself, where I end and my people begin,” she said. “As an American, you get these delusions that your life is about individual determination and the pursuit of happiness. But to be raised in a Jewish community or be a part of one is to know that’s a lie; what really matters is community and that push and pull and back and forth is something that’s fascinated me.”
“The Modern Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt” edited by Ruth Andrew Ellenson (318 pages, Dutton, $24.95). Ellenson will be appearing with her contributors Aimee Bender and Rebecca Walker as part of San Francisco Jewish BookFest, 11 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 6 at the Jewish Community Center San Francisco, 3200 California St., S.F.