I recently signed up for LibraryThing a website, where I can catalog my book collection and connect with people who read/own the same items. I also joined its Early Reviewer group for a chance to get free, advance copies of upcoming books. The available books are listed in monthly batches, and any member of the early reviewer group can request any number of books from the list. I marked only the three that interested me, but I suspect many people mark all of the dozens of books offered. Usually 10-30 copies of each book are offered and 300-1000 people sign up for every one of them. Being a newcomer, not knowing how the books are allocated and being one of the 402 people who wanted one of the 30 copies of Cool Jew I was surprised to receive a notification that I would receive a copy. I was even more surprised when the book arrived the next day.
If I’d had to describe the Lisa Alcalay Klug‘s book in a few words I would call it an edutaining field manual. It can be viewed as a primer on Judaism. It has a lot of information about contemporary American Judaica so there is no question about its educational value. How much value you gain from the book depends on where you are coming from, with what level and kind of knowledge. For me, being a first-generation Jewish immigrant who is involved in Judaism, who had little exposure to Yiddish the primary benefit in reading this book was getting to know some of the terms that transferred from Yiddish usage to English. I think I know now how to incorporate words like into my everyday speak.
The preface (titled “Covenant“) declares that the book is valuable for non-Jews as well. I question that notion. It is clearly written form an insider, emic point of view. I contend that most of it would be incomprehensible to someone who is not halfway immersed into Judaism already. This book is not recommended to learn the basics of Judaism. However it can be deciphered as an ethnographical study of modern urban Jewish life. For the hard work of interpretation the book can server as the Rosetta Stone that connects Jewish experience with the modern America. The trouble is it is written in a virtual dialect that may require its own interpretation.
If you are a 20-30 something, urban Jewish-American then the book’s information about Judaism may be of limited value to you, despite that you clearly are the target audience. You probably know most of the factual content it covers, but it may be helpful to go over them again. For you the book’s main draw could be its entertaining style. No matter where you open it up it is fun to read. You might get mentally tired though reading it from cover to cover. Instead of doing that I recommend to use the book as a reference, or at least reading it in smaller chunks.
By calling the book a field manual I referred to the fact that it tells you a lot about what to do/eat/drink/wear/say and even think but devotes little attention to the why part of things. Therefore the book works well if your goal is to blend in, but not so well if you want to dig deeper. I am not blaming the book for this, because clearly that is not its goal. It wants to enable you to look and feel Jewish and does not force or help you to look at the bottom of your soul and tradition for meaning.
As factual reference book it is sufficient enough. Its seven chapters cover the exposition of what it means to be Jewish, lifecycle events and stages, Jewish food and objects, holidays, religious practices and kabbalah, descriptions of tribal peopleship and the significance of oral and written culture. The appendix include a blessing song and a list of
- lists of essential information related to Judaism
- 250+ URLs
- audio recordings, i.e. songs, CDs, LPs
So far I did not mention much about the book’s style and as we know it form Marx it makes little sense to separate content from form. The book looks fabulous. Every page includes either a drawing by Amos Goldbaum or a photograph or a copy of an authentic and relevant document. The book as an object is a joy to handle; paging it through is an aesthetic experience. The style of the writing is not always to my personal liking, but I can imagine that it works for other. I think it is overusing cutesiness and too full of repetition.
It is one thing to a replace the “u” sound in a few words with “Jew”, like in JewTube. It is quite another to encounter this kind of wordplay every second page. The author might thought it is cute, but I personally got saturated quickly. On the other hand I acknowledge Klug’s creativity: there are lots of examples where she builds up inside jokes with cleverly formulated words, or provides quick references by sawing smart hints. Most of the time I was having fun along with her as she was mixing words, languages and frames of mind.
I estimate that two third of the book consists of lists. Since the invasion of PowerPoint we know how functional bulleted lists are to get together essential points and as mnemonic devices. However the same way corporate America is starting to get tired of the uniformity of presentations, due to the compulsory bullet points handouts, I also got tired of seeing lists upon lists. Particularly the ones that did not make sense to me. For example deciding from a list of fruits which ones are “Jewish” and which ones are not–based on their names or the associations their small, color or other characteristic may invoke—seemed a futile exercise for me.
I recognize however that it serves the possible underlying goal of the book: redefining what does it mean to be Jewish. To start off the process of this revaluation the author is using the term Heebster instead of Jew. I previously only heard the term in the context of jokes. Apparently not being a modern, metropolitan, American Jew, I missed when the term slid into new territory. Or maybe this book is shoving it there. Either way, I have no objections of practicing self-analysis, recognizing of changed conditions, and creating new meaning, after all these are all Jewish customs in themselves.
Having talked about the details of the book I need to address the bigger picture. The book intends to elevate coolness to a central aspect of Judaism. Reading this book I got the feeling that coolness should as important for cool young Jews as it was to be ethically pure, devoted to Torah life for previous generations. To understand the significance of this we need to understand what being cool and what being Jewish means. The latter, for most of history, was identified by outsiders in terms of ascendants, territory or religion. From an anti-Semitic view it was also described by negative characteristics and limited circle of looked-down occupations. Jews often defined themselves in ethical terms. There is no single definition, but cool was rarely a word associated with Jews.
Just as I could not define Jewish in unequivocal terms I cannot do the same for the cool. Here are some helpful pointers from Wikipedia:
- Cool is an aesthetic of attitude, behavior, comportment, appearance, style and Zeitgeist.
- It has associations of composure and self-control and often is used as an expression of admiration or approval.
- “Cool is a knowledge, a way of life.” – Lewis Macadams
- “Cool is an age-specific phenomenon, defined as the central behavioural trait of teenagerhood.”
- “Coolness is the proper way you represent yourself to a human being.” – Robert Farris Thompson
- “Secrets are the very root of cool.” – William Gibson
- An attitude of self-assurance – Terry Pratchett
What is missing from the above examples for me is the social nature of coolness. You cannot be cool on a desert island. Cool is in the eye of the beholder. The book’s subtitle, “the ultimate guide for every member of the tribe,” helps to define coolness in tribal terms. It wants you to be cool within the tribe and indirectly also in wider society. Part of the tribal appeal is coming from “basking in reflected glory.” If more and more Jews are considered cool and if I am associated with them, then by proxy I am cool too. The marketing of the book banks on this, e.g. the book’s website prominently shows that it is already sold out, even though it will come out only August 1 according to Amazon.com (and on September 1, according to LibraryThing).
Ten years ago Rich Cohen published “Tough Jews.” It was intended to be a complete history of Jewish organized crime in America. The semantic structure of the title of “Cool Jew” reminds me of that book, with the obviously different connotation of the adjective. Both books are here to shatter previously strong stereotypes: Jews were meek and uncool. The latest generations of Jews have a different and possibly stronger sense of pride in their Judaism than previous ones. They internalized the importance of being cool in America and extended it to the other integral part of their identity, their Jewish self. They want to feel proud to be American and proud to be Jewish. This book will help them.