Writing a Jewish Life: Memoirs

Raphael, Lev. "Writing A Jewish Life: Memoirs". Carroll & Graf, 2006 Self-Acceptance Amos Lassen and Literary Pride Gays always seem to have trouble in claiming both their religious and sexual identities. For many of us, we leave religion behind when we realize that we are gay because we feel that religion has no place for us. Lev Raphael tells his persona story of claiming both and his personal road to self-acceptance. Because we are gay, we often feel separated from our community and our family and sometimes even from ourselves. It takes a great deal of honesty to be able to reconcile ourselves with our basic religious beliefs but Lev Raphael shows that is can indeed be done. With deep insight and crystal clear prose his search is explained in "Writing a Jewish Life" and although he does not give s a road map on how to do the same, it is easy to look at what he has done and adapt it to our own lives. We must rise above some of the issues of society such as race, religion and gender and find a shared humanity that will bring us together. Raphael's book is a memoir but it is more than that. It is a guide to self understanding. He uses his own life story so that he can better understand himself in terms of his religion, his homosexuality and his life as a writer. As the son of Holocaust survivors he had to be able to rise above the inhumanity of man in order to find the basic goodness of man and in effect, this is something that many of us do everyday. We look for the good in mankind and hope to be able to fit that good into our own lives. Raphael, as am author, is able to use his skill as a writer to overcome the sense of alienation he has felt as a gay Jewish man. He is able to create his own sense of history. For myself, there were parts of this book that were achingly painful as I have gone through so much of what Raphael has endured. Ostracized in my own mind and feeling that my religion did not want me, I ad to find my own place where I could share the beautiful heritage of m people and my religion with my homosexuality. There is no easy fit nor is there an easy fix. It is all about self compromise. Of course some of that self compromise is dependent on how far "out" a person is. When I came to Arkansas, I had to decide if I should just be out or return to the closet until I ad built up a new circle of friends and established myself. I had already done this once before in New Orleans and then again when I moved to Israel. Coming to Arkansas, however, presented a greater challenge. I did not choose to come here; I was brought here by the National Guard after I sustained much of the wrath of one of the greatest natural disasters of all time, Hurricane Katrina. I had reconciled myself to my faith by leaving it. Now in a new place with new people, my own sense of community was with my synagogue or temple. Could I risk being out? I looked at it as not so much a risk because I was not comfortable not being myself and decided to be who and

After reading through SECRET ANNIVERSARIES OF THE HEART by Lev Raphael, I went to this earlier collection of essays and "creative nonfiction" to uncork the sources of the writer's genius . . . Stimulating . . . Things I never knew . . . He had the sort of mom and dad who, imprisoned in the Nazi death camps, were all about, "Nothing else in life was ever as dramatic as that" . . . they really had no patience with him, for he had not suffered as they had . . . at the same time, their experience caused them to cut way back on how "Jewish" they were . . . understandably they complained they had had enough of other Jews in the camps . . . and led secular lives, without taking little Lev to any seders or other Jewish celebrations . . . consequently he grew up deracinated to an extent . . . and living a lie when it came to his sexuality, for how could he further devastate his family by admitting he was gay of all things . . . thus his earliest fiction had nothing real about it as he now admits . . . Under the tutelage of an understanding writing professor at college, and afterwards, for the two kept in touch, Raphael began painfully one step at a time to become real in his writing and real in his life . . . This necessitated getting involved in the Yiddishkeit which I'm still not sure about . . . what it is . . . and eventually moving to Okemos and settling down with Gersh Kaufman, wellknown psychologist . . . . trips to Israel produced more honest and compelling writing . . . while reviewing and broadcasting helped make Lev Raphael a household name. Good book . . . though some of it was familiar from earlier publication in JOURNEYS AND ARRIVALS book . . . my attitude is, can never have too much Lev Raphael and so called "double dipping" only hurts the ignorant and bigoted . . . check out "Selling Was Never My Line" for some comic relief, relief from the many tragedies outlined elsewhere in the book . . . this hilarious tale about writing a book called DANCING ON TISHA B'AV and hearing it referred to as DANCING ON THE TISSUE BOX, and other indignities even the greatest authors have to face . . . in today's mass market culture . . . puts a grin on your face. I wound up not liking the mother very much, she wouldn't give an inch . . . that's her prerogative, she suffered, she was there . . . apparently a gifted teacher in Brussels (Belgium) after the war, she shut down emotionally and wasn't available to her boy . . . and the dad was no prize either and Lev writes a bitter piece about him called "Scars."

I catalog books for a living. This book came across my desk yesterday. Intrigued by the title, I looked a little further; then spent my lunch hour reading it. Although parts of it will personally touch only those of us who actually are children of Holocaust survivors, there is also a universal theme throughout the book of personal discovery and the intricacies and influences of life experiences on that discovery. Well written, the author definitely has an engaging style and the reader finds him/herself drawn into the experience. Definitely worth the read.

In Writing a Jewish Life, Lev Raphael explores a variety of themes, including being the child of Holocaust survivors, being Jewish, being gay, being the son of an ill parent, being the owner of a wonderful dog, and much more. In other words, Raphael taps into the very essence of being human. He does so with eloquence, wit, and writing that flows effortlessly, beautifully. WAJL delves into emotions with which I could deeply identify, regardless of my familiarity with the eliciting experience. I learned. I remembered. I laughed. I was moved to tears. I was provoked to think. Even after I had turned the last page, WAJL left me feeling as if I had received a wonderful gift. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who appreciates exceptional, masterful, emotionally evocative writing.

Once again, Lev Raphael has written a deeply affecting book, this one a memoir, dealing with a variety of themes: being gay and Jewish, the child of Holocaust survivors, and a writer; establishing a home; the joys of gardening; the illness and loss of his mother; Israel; going to Germany for the first time; the publishing industry--all of these subjects are part of what he calls his "intimate geography," and reading about them is a pleasure. Penned with the clarity and grace (and wit)one has come to expect from Raphael, the essays included here are a welcome place to become acquainted (and re-acquainted) with this excellent writer.