Jewish Press: Which interviewee(s) proved the most interesting?
Pogrebin: I was struck by Kenneth Cole’s candor in describing how he’s wrestled with his decision to raise his three daughters in his wife’s Catholic faith. I was surprised to hear Ruth Bader Ginsburg describe how being excluded from the mourner’s minyan after her mother’s death alienated her from the tradition. I liked Ronald Perelman’s image of the Sabbath being like “an island” for his family once a week, and hearing him discuss his own difficult bout with a very public intermarriage. I was surprised by Professor Alan Dershowitz’s decision to forgo morning prayer and strict observance because he’s assumed to be a religious Jew by so many; it was interesting to hear him talk about where he sits now in terms of ritual and how he felt when his son married a non-Jew. Natalie Portman was also provocative when she described what she sees as the difference between Jews in Israel and Jews in America.
The most disappointing?
I don’t want to name names because everyone in the book did me an enormous favor by being a part of it. But there are some who played it closer to the vest than I would have liked, or gave what I would consider facile answers about complicated issues. Fortunately, I think they’re in the minority: most of the people I interviewed were unusually candid and willing to explore this territory fairly openly.
You write in the book’s prologue of a relatively recent rekindling of interest in Judaism on your part. Were you disheartened by the flip or blasé attitude toward things Jewish (ritual observance, intermarriage, etc.) displayed by many if not most of your interviewees?
I don’t want to suggest that I was judging anyone’s lack of observance or intermarriage, but I will admit that I felt like something had been lost when I listened to many of the public figures talk about their Jewish identity. I also came away wishing that there was a more accessible forum in which to discuss people’s reasons for disconnection, when it occurs, so that it might be addressed more effectively in the Jewish community.
On a related note, did you find yourself less optimistic about the survival of American Jewry given the vast majority of the interviewees’ total lack of concern over intermarriage and assimilation? Many of them almost seem to wear that lack of concern as a badge of honor.
I did find myself worrying about the endurance of the Jewish people. But I took some consolation in Leon Wieseltier’s point that the Jews are as resilient as they come: “I have a mystical confidence in the eternity of our people. When I regard all the things that have happened to Jews and to Judaism in all of Jewish history, I come away bitter, of course, and angry, of course, but also astounded by or perdurability…..” He also raises the point that Jews have to do more than just marry each other if the Jewish people are going to survive: “Is it enough that Epstein married Rosenblatt? I guess that’s something. But then what do Epstein and Rosenblatt do next as Jews?”
Speaking of Wieseltier, it so happens that your chat with him comprised, at least for this reader, one of the book’s more disturbing chapters. He seemed to exude a nonchalant arrogance as he expounded on his pick-and-choose approach to Judaism based on his Orthodox upbringing and knowledge of Jewish sources.
I understand that some people will chafe at Leon Wieseltier’s tone and judgment, but I was personally challenged by the things he said about the carelessness with which so many Jews approach their Judaism – and our conversation led me, in large part, to start studying Torah.