An entertaining overview likely to inspire debate.
A spirited examination of the essence of Jewishness.
Acknowledging that Jews “don’t know if we are a religion, a civilization, an ethnic group, a race, all or none of the above,” librarian and journalist Maxwell (Sacred Stacks: The Higher Purpose of Libraries and Librarianship, 2006, etc.) maintains, nevertheless, that Jews share definable traits. Drawing on abundant sources, including the Talmud, Judaic scholars and historians, rabbis, a cadre of friends that make up her own “Jewish Jury,” and assorted figures from popular culture (Woody Allen, Groucho Marx, Jack Benny, and Joan Rivers, among many more), the author brings a lively curiosity to her lighthearted investigation. Describing herself as a “spiritual-but-not-religious Jew” who married a non-Jew and has raised her daughter as a Jew, she feels an “unshakable loyalty” to her Jewish identity and sets out to discover what makes Jewishness distinctive. Worrying, she asserts, is a special Jewish trait, perhaps inspired by ancient disasters (the Ten Plagues, for example) or persecution. Other shared behaviors include taking pride in achievements attained by Jews; an affinity for joining social and charitable groups; and particular food choices, such as cheesecake, bagels and lox, and gefilte fish. Her assertion, though, that Jews have a “unique relationship” with food might surprise “an Italian Catholic momma” whose “religion doesn’t even esteem food as much as mine.” Comedy seems to Maxwell also particularly Jewish. “Over the past forty years,” she writes, “an estimated 80 percent of America’s leading comedians and writers have been Jews.” The search for typical traits leads, not surprisingly, to the stereotypical: Maxwell debunks the derogatory image of a “Jewish nose” but not the notion that Jews talk faster and louder than others. She asserts that verbal sparring results from Jews’ tendency “to trust that with enough talking, arguing, debating, and analyzing, the truth will emerge.” Besides examining traits, Maxwell considers her own apparently uncanny “Jewdar” that enables her to recognize other Jews. Urging Jews to talk about her book with others, she provides a 30-page appendix of hints to structure discussion.
An entertaining overview likely to inspire debate.Pub Date: March 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8276-1302-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Jewish Publication Society
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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