Jew Boy: A Memoir

Alan Kaufman is a writer who now lives in San Francisco. He grew up in the Bronx in the 1950's. He was involved in some important publications and was one of the people who brought Spoken Word to the public's attention. While traveling all over the world, Kaufman found time to join the Israeli Army. At the same time his writing has always been very important to his life. He was involved with many journals and was known as the editor of the Jewish theme magazine Davka. He also edited most importantly The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. This is an anthology that traces all outlaw movements in poetry from Whitman to Slam. It is one of the best-known anthologies. Even though Kaufman spent most of his time in New York City, in 1990 he came to San Francisco to join forces with the San Francisco spoken word scene that revolved around Cafe Babar. Kaufman published a book of poems American Cruiser that was one of the highlights of the new scene. As media attention came unwillingly to spoken word and freedom of speech in 1993 during the San Francisco Poets strike, Kaufman was one of the people at the center of the storm. Along with Gary Glazner, Kaufman helped put San Francisco on the map in terms of poetry slams, activism, and MTV culture. As Kaufman made a place for himself in the literary world, he brought American poets on tour abroad, spreading Spoken Word to Europe and helped many new voices get heard by organizing several readings locally and nationally. Most notable of these was Wordland. At the same time he was dissatisfied. Secretly he worked for years on what would soon become a memoir. Jew Boy is a book about growing up in New York City and being the son of a Holocaust survivor. It is a brilliant book. It is a confession. It reads like a novel of growing up and learning life's lessons, through the eyes of a poet. Jew Boy is an important book for any time, and especially right now, in the world that we find ourselves in after 9-11.

I can't remember the last time I was moved so emotionally by a memoir. Although first published in 2000, I think the chaos and violence of February 2003 make it an even more important book, a must read for everyone concerned about the "approaching clouds of war" and the current world-wide epidemic of racism, nationalism, religious intolerance, and fear of the "other." Kaufman is a great writer and poet. "Who Are We?", the poem that ends the book, is worthy of serious study in our schools; and his observations of places and people are beautifully written, whether describing the bleakness of a Nebraska landscape or the changes in the mien of an Israeli soldier on a bus: "... in time of war you can tell when a soldier is thinking about the war. ... she woke, looked up into his eyes, saw it there, struggled to sit upright, her hand going to his face, but he pushed it away. His shoulder shrank up against the cold glass window filled with the world that he had defied to touch him and it had touched him in that strange way that war touches people and makes them prefer cold glass to a warm hand." Read it, please.

Like the author, I am also a child of Holocaust Survivors. There are many excellent things about this book. This book clearly demonstrates that suffering did not always end with the Survivors themselves; sometimes we, as their children, also suffered. I put this book at the "extreme" end of 2nd generation stories; Kaufman's mother was very disturbed, and physically abused him. In addition, his father, even though he wasn't a Survivor, did nothing to protect his son from his mother's wrath. If this alone did not make for a miserable childhood, his father squandered his income, and Kaufman's parents provided little of the author's needs, both physical and emotional; one horrific scene was how they cruelly tricked him, and refused to give him the Bar Mitzvah they had promised. One excellent part of the book, is when the author describes very well the unique experiences of children of Survivors. One fine example is when he writes about a favorite teacher, an American Jew from Michigan, who lauds his writing abilities, but at the same time pities him for having a Survivor mother. He writes about how deeply inferior he felt in that moment; that the gulf between him and his teacher was "immense", as she was "truly American", and no matter what he did, he could never be. I have felt this so many times myself, but only in this book have I seen it described so perfectly. He goes on to write about his great isolation, how it lead to alcoholism, but how, in the end, it was writing poetry which lead him to sobriety, and to regaining his soul. ...This book is a very honest portrayal of the most difficult childhood of a 2nd generation person I have ever read.

I applaud Mr Kaufman for having the courage to expose the paranoia, racial distrust and cultural instability associated with Post Holocaust Judaism. My own childhood was similar. Though my parents were never in any concentration camp, they ascribed to a similar type of cultural victimology and I was compelled to be a good example for "my people". I empathize with his bewilderment and fear at doing anything which might rekindle his mother's sense of insecurity and marvel at how he managed to extricate himself from such a traumatic background and restructure his life without guilt. I congratulate the author for having finally escaped a self destructive cycle.

Jewish literature has at last found its Jean Jacques Rousseau! Alan Kaufman's Jew Boy breaks the lock-step of modern literature and takes the reader, Jew and non-Jew alike, into a new world! I have never read a book as visionary as Alan Kaufman' Jew Boy. His language is sizzling, his insights razor-edged, his honesty a revelation in this age of knee-jerk political correctness. The author, who is definitely a rebel in the lineage of D.H.Lawrence,Henry Miller, Genet, has made a pioneering effort to create from a Jewish standpoint an authentic autobiographical narrative of self that transcends the culturally indoctrinated, the dutifully historic, the memoiristically ethnic, in favor of a heart-pounding, gut-wrenching, mind-illuminating tale of such profound wonder and tragically hilarious truth that the reader--me--put down "Jew Boy" feeling forever transformed, braver and more joyful for having dared to enter this man's astonishing world.