- Paperback: 1 pages
- Publisher: Overlook Press; Reprint edition (Aug 1 1995)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0879516054
- ISBN-13: 978-0879516055
- Product Dimensions: 22.8 x 15.2 x 3.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 699 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #802,407 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
When fast-breaking political events forced British novelist Jacobson ( Peeping Tom ) to put off a trip to Lithuania planned as a search for his Jewish roots, he accepted an offer from the BBC to visit Jewish communities around the globe instead. This informed and witty account of his experiences deals with the wide variety of contemporary Jewish life, as well as with how Jacobson's observations affected his own concept of what it means to be a Jew. Riding an emotional roller coaster, he witnessed the hostility between Jews and African Americans in New York City, attended services in a gay synagogue in California and found his basic cynicism about religion reinforced after he spent time with Orthodox Jews in Israel, although his spirits were lifted by a visit to an idealistic, tolerant Israeli kibbutz. His journey concluded with the postponed trip to Lithuania, where the author found virulent anti-Semitism. The book has been adapted for a forthcoming BBC/PBS documentary.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Kirkus Reviews
In his fiction (Redback, 1987; Peeping Tom, 1985, etc.) and now with this travelogue/sociologue/personalogue about his semi-Jewishness, Jacobson seems fated never quite to cast off the perception of him as a Philip Roth wannabe perpetually one step behind (both in talent and intellectual plasticity) his American master. Given a deal by the BBC and PBS to wander Jewish venues such as the Concord resort, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Israel, and his grandparents' Lithuania, Jacobson is ever defensively atwitter, waving the antenna of his jokey skepticism. He detests the religious like the Lubavitcher Rebbe and the Hasidim of Jerusalem not only because they no doubt would be scandalized by Jacobson's gentile wife and his own secularism but also on the grounds of aesthetics: ``How is it that austerity on matters of religious faith and ritual almost invariably accompanies laxity in matters of art, music, proportion, tact, ethics, manners, civic probity, passing decency and whatever else you can think of that isn't religious faith and ritual.'' Had he spent less time flexing his condescension, Jacobson might have been able to arrive at some provisional conclusions as to why (there are an established few, after all, not all of them anti-Semitic, too)--but, instead, his screed is wrapped inside a Carnegie Deli corned-beef sandwich of wise-guy superiority and overeducated disaffiliation. Despite some nice miniatures: a snide, rather pointless, lazy book. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2.9 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enlightening, Feb 15 2000
By David Smith - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Roots Schmoots (Paperback)
No hatred in this book, although plenty in the remarks of two of the on-line reviewers who are like bit part players in the book itself. Jacobson is erudite, fair, modest, compassionate and compelling. He doesn't pretend to be writing an academic investigation, more a personal journey, and he has the decency to admit that it's an inconclusive one. There is, of course, no point in spending time and money on a book like this if you lack learning and humour, of if you believe that on matters of religion and identity you already have all the answers.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thoroughly enjoyable Jewish travel stories, July 20 2010
By Harmon Spolan - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Roots Schmoots (Paperback)
Howard Jacobson has written a very funny, sometimes poignant, and always insightful book about his travels to various Jewish Communities in the US, Europe, and Israel. His wit is rapier sharp, and his commentaries are always right on the spot. I found myself laughing out loud, and annoying my wife by reading long passages to her, thereby spoiling her fun.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lighten Up, Why Don't You?, Mar 3 2001
By R. Adams - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Roots Schmoots (Paperback)
Roots, Schmoots: Journeys Among Jews is, first of all, funny. One should not come to it expecting to read a balanced, well-researched history/sociology of Judaism, Israel or the Diaspora. Think more along the lines of taking a long, relaxed (but neurotic as all get-out) trip with a very funny man in search of something even he can't quite identify.The chapters describing his time in the US are hilarious and poignant at once. The chapters on Israel are quite well done, capturing the author's exasperated love for the nation and its people, and his often wayward search for justice. Jacobson tries to avoid sentiment at all costs, yet continually finds himself caught up short by a lump in the throat. A very good, very funny travel book. A very good, very funny story of one person's hunt for himself. Not for the compulsively or competitively serious.
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