|
On Jewish Journalism
By: Miriam Cohen
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
People look at me sometimes, at my shirt that isn’t button-down, at my skirt that isn’t pleated, at my socks that, well, aren’t, and say with a baffled smirk: “Jewish books? Really? That’s what you like to read?” It seems these days Jewish fiction is all I’m interested in reading. And for me, the extension of that lends itself to my writing. The same smirk reappears, and they lean in closer as they say this, taking in, perhaps, my collar bone: “Jewish journalism? Really?”
I wasn’t always so proudly Jewish in my reading or my writing. In junior high and for the better part of high school my penchant for TV boosted my popularity with my non-religious grandparents considerably. Dawson’s Creek sparked many a proud conversation at family get-togethers. I deplored, on principle, all Jewish culture. After all, Jewish culture as I knew it, was archaic and dull. It was most certainly not by any stretch cool, a fact even my grandparents could attest to.
My bedroom boasted a gigantic poster of Leonardo DiCaprio (though I referred to him simply as Leo), and despite the better judgment of my own taste honed by biannual or triannual Broadway show excursions, in the days before iPods, I filled my CD player with Backstreet Boys CDs. (In my defense this was eight years ago.)
I read books by and about (and ostensibly for) WASPS. I followed plotlines of heroines whose hair was blond, long, and most of all, straight as a pin. I rolled names like “Christine” and “Katherine” over my tongue; names like “John” and “Peter.” Common enough names, but certainly ones never to show up in the list of names recited at a yeshiva’s roll call. I read about silence and kilts and Easter. I did not read about guilt or kippas or Pesach.
And when I did, in high school, begin to read Jewish fiction alongside my non-Jewish fiction (which I still immensely enjoy), it was done surreptitiously – under covers, at night, where no one could see me. Reading fiction by Jewish authors smacked a little too closely of looking in the mirror for me. Entering Barnes and Noble and emerging with a Jewish name on the front cover felt shamefully and absurdly self-conscious. Judaism was for school; it was for Chumash and Navi and dress codes. It was for shul; it was for prayer.
This shame must sound odd; it certainly strikes me now as strange, even teetering at the brink of a kind of self-loathing. But it was not that, or at the very least, not entirely. I struggled with and against my love of Jewish fiction, because I was terrified of provinciality. I see that fear reflected back at me now by well-meaning individuals who ask me with subtle contempt if I intend to work in “Jewish journalism.” What disturbs me most about this is the unsaid judgment that is passed by the people who remark uncertainly on my penchant for things Jewish. It seems that, for many, being Jewish is not enough to foster an interest in Jewish culture. One must “look Jewish” as well, in the amorphous ever-changing definition of what, in a given community, with any given number of stringencies “Jewish” looks like today.
There is something so poignant, so strikingly deep about Jewish culture. I cannot imagine enjoying any kind of writing more than “Jewish journalism.” There is a certain kind of shorthand between Jews that adds a layer of connection where, by all means there shouldn’t be one. This connection is subtle and small. It crops up, when interviewing a Jewish author who is at a loss for the right word, she exclaims with excitement: “You’ll know what this means – davkah.” And I do know what she means. When this happens it does not matter that she is non-observant and that I am Orthodox. It does not matter that she is famous, or controversial, or anything else. It matters that I understand what others may not simply because we are both Jewish.
When I interview people for Jewish publications I always ask the same question at the very end of the interview. I ask them what their message to the Jewish community of today is. People predictably enough balk at this vast question (I have no idea what my own answer might be), but the answers I have received are uniformly exquisite. I ask this question selfishly. Though the answers do make for lovely quotes, the true force behind my query is pervasive personal interest. Jewish journalism is deeper for me than any other kind of reporting gig, because on a cosmic level I am profoundly interested in the answers I receive.
Miriam Cohen is majoring in English at Touro College. Comments are welcome mcohen616@aol.com
|