Sunday Sentence
Another Sunday in which I participate in David Abrams’s “Sunday Sentence” project, which asks others to share the best sentence(s) we’ve read during the past week, “out of context and without commentary.”
But of course, a Jew is never free not to be a Jew—and a writer who publishes a whole book about being Jewish is not exactly fleeing the identification.
Source: Adam Kirsch’s review of Yascha Mounk’s new memoir, for Tablet.
(Again, breaking the “no-commentary” rule: I like this sentence so much because it crystallizes my own sentiments after reading Mounk’s essay in last week’s New York Times “Week in Review.”)
Thanks for the link to Mounk’s essay. Pretty interesting reading, especially for what he says about philo-semitism in contemporary Germany. (“A real jew!”) Incredibly clumsy and not a little phony. Gosh, how would an African-American these days feel about enthusiastically hailed as “a real black”? His comments remind me of the sentiment I sometimes hear down here in the south that racism is just not a problem anymore. That was a problem for 40 years ago, but we’ve “solved” it. Hah! These sentiments are always expressed by whites; never by African-Americans. Similarly, Germany doesn’t get to just decide that the holocaust is all done and the country can leave that history behind. No, it can’t.
I just couldn’t assimilate (no pun intended) the claims at the end of the essay with the idea of writing a book that is being promoted extensively as a book about being Jewish. Which is why Adam K’s observation resonated so strongly.
Yes, I understand. After I put my comment up I realized that I was quite addressing the issue you had intended to address. Oh well. Still, it was a very interesting essay.
John, ALL of your comments are always welcome! I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise, and apologize if I did so.
No, no. I didn’t take it that way. Thanks, Erika.