Becoming and being Jewish

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

Two recently published memoirs highlight how much more meaningful and interesting a book can be when an author writes not just for readers, but for himself as well.

Both Jew and Improved: How Choosing to be Chosen Made Me a Better Man (HarpersCollins Publishers Ltd., 2009) by Benjamin Errett and The 188th Crybaby Brigade: A Skinny Jewish Kid from Chicago Fights Hezbollah (Free Press, 2010) by Joel Chasnoff are very entertaining books. And both are written in a similar style, with humor that verges on sardonic. However, Errett maintains an emotional distance from his material, while Chasnoff immerses himself in it, and readers will feel as if they've met him after reading The 188th Crybaby Brigade. Errett seems to have written his memoir mainly to amuse, which is a perfectly acceptable reason to write, but his book suffers from a lack of depth as a result. Chasnoff, on the other hand, seems to have written about his experiences in order to better understand them himself and this aspect makes it more personal, and more impactful.

That being said, Jew and Improved is pretty funny, and well worth reading. It starts as Errett is about to face the beit din (religious court) considering his conversion, then takes readers back to when Errett met his fiancée, Sarah, giving some of their respective backgrounds, but focusing on the process required to convert, and what he and Sarah learn along the way.

The reasons Errett has for wanting to convert are never made really clear, but one motivating factor is that Sarah is Jewish. Neither she or her family ask Errett to convert; in fact, some relatives attempt to dissuade him. However, he appreciates how she and her family find comfort from Judaism in instances of sickness and death, as well as in happier times. He also values that, "Judaism is about what you do, not what you believe. What matters is not that you believe in the prayer, but that you pray in the first place. Don't focus on what the structures are meant to do; focus on the structures themselves. If you do it, you believe it." For him, "when you stop worrying about whether you believe in God or not, He's much easier to get along with."

While such quips make for a good, fast read, they don't engender thought beyond that and, in this instance – one of many – a potentially fascinating discussion about Errett's wrestle with God, faith and religion is tossed aside for a one-liner. One of the more intriguing chapters in the book breaks from this style, when Errett reflects on the Holocaust and its problematic depiction in most Hollywood films, and he watches a Shoah Foundation interview with Sarah's grandmother, Helena, a survivor. Jew and Improved would have benefited from more such passages.

The 188th Crybaby Brigade shows that seriousness doesn't have to be at the expense of humor. Chasnoff is completely irreverent and raunchy in describing his year in the Israeli army, but there is an obvious love for his subject matter and a sureness about himself and his identity. While Errett still seems uncertain of his life choices by his book's end, Chasnoff's self-assuredness is clear from the beginning, in his opening chapter, when he shares the details of a rather intimate pre-army medical exam at the Israel Defence Forces Induction Centre outside Tel Aviv.

His honesty and openness continue into the next chapter, as he admits that he is "not exactly military material," physically (skinny and five-foot-eight), psychologically (passes out at the sight of blood) or politically (hates violence and guns). But he grew up with a strong Jewish identity, raised in the Conservative movement: "I genuinely loved being a Jew," he writes, then goes on to list the aspects he most enjoyed, such as leading morning prayers, his bar mitzvah and the Torah: "I loved the blood-curdling confrontations with evil Pharaoh, the breathtaking encounters with whales that swallowed men whole. When I read these stories, I imagined I was one of my Bible heroes, marching through the parted Red Sea and turning my staff into a serpent while Pharaoh gasped in fright.... What I loved most about my Bible was that these weren't just stories, these were my stories. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were my ancestors. All these wonderful tales were things that had happened to people in my family. And where did all the action happen? In a magical, far-off land called Israel."

The first Israeli Chasnoff met was Ruti, his second-grade teacher, "who made Israel come alive." He went to Israel on two trips, at nine and 13, but, it was the third trip, when he was 17, when he "fell in love with Israelis." By the end of that fateful summer, Chasnoff writes, "I'd decided two things. First, that it wasn't fair that we American Jews called Israel our homeland but left Israelis to defend it. Second, I made up my mind that I, too, would one day be a soldier standing at the side of the road, hitchhiking with an Uzi slung over my shoulder. Instead of just praying for Israel, I would fight for it. I, too, would be the hero of the Jews."

As with most idealizations, reality falls short, and Chasnoff's army experience, as a member of the 188th Armored Brigade (a unit trained on Merkava tanks) has its share of pitfalls. Twenty-four years old at the time, Chasnoff is older than most of the other soldiers and this, in addition to his being American, seems to allow him the ability to take a step back from what is going on, and analyze it. Teen angst, deadly training mistakes, organizational miscommunications, etc., make for a chaotic year, which ranges from incredibly dangerous, such as almost getting killed by a stray bullet, to incredibly boring, sitting on a tank in Lebanon playing 20 Questions with a fellow soldier, sipping tea and eating snacks, for example.

At the end of his year in the army, Chasnoff's tumultuous long-term relationship with his girlfriend, about which we read at various points, is challenged again when Israel determines that he and his girlfriend cannot get married because ... Chasnoff isn't Jewish! His mother had converted, but with a Conservative rabbi, not an Orthodox one, so Israel's Rabbinical Council doesn't accept the conversion as valid. This pronouncement – and how Chasnoff ultimately satisfies Israel that he is Jewish – is not flattering for the country and leads to some harsh criticism:

"After 25 years of living as a Jew, I know exactly who I am," writes Chasnoff. "But after two generations in which Israel defined itself as a post-Holocaust haven from antisemitism – in other words, the past – Israel now faces a much greater challenge: defining its future. In the meantime, the country has no idea who it is. It's a democracy with no separation between church and state. It's a sovereign nation with only one rigidly defined border: the Mediterranean Sea. It's a Jewish state where observant Jewish soldiers have to choose between breakfast and prayers, where the most religious Jews don't even have to serve in the army, and where the criteria for getting drafted aren't enough to get you buried in the military graveyard."

The 188th Crybaby Brigade is not always an easy read, which is exactly why it should be read.

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