Half/Life Jew-ish Tales from Interfaith Homes

by Snyder, Laurel

• ISBN13: 9781933368245
• ISBN10: 1933368241
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-03-23
• Publisher: Soft Skull

Summary

By turns tragic and funny, religious and heartbreaking, angry and surprisingly familiar, Half/Life represents the altogether diverse memories and reflections of a handful of Half-Jews, among them Thisbe Nissen, Katharine Weber, Jennifer Traig, Jeff Sharlet, and Joyce Maynard. Each of these writers was born into the so-called "dilemma of intermarriage," and each has spent a lifetime grappling with how to define themselves...or not. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Laurel Snyder is the author of six novels for children, two books of poems, and the editor of an anthology of nonfiction, Half/Life: Jewish tales from Interfaith Homes. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a former Michener-Engle Fellow, Laurel has published work in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the Utne Reader, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Revealer, Salon, The Iowa Review, American Letters and Commentary, and elsewhere. She is an occasional commentator for NPR’s "All Things Considered," and she teaches in the MFAC program at Hamline University, and also in the creative writing department at Emory University. A Baltimore native, Laurel now lives in Atlanta (in Ormewood Park), with her family. Which is really the best part.

Table of Contents

Introduction
LAUREL SNYDER	1	(8)
A Question in the Shape of Your Body
MARGARET SCHWARTZ	9	(6)
My Father's Hebrew Name
DENA SEIDEL	15	(22)
Half Holy, Wholly Half
ANTHONY HECHT	37	(6)
Bury the Knife in Yonkers or Bibbity Bobbity Jew
THISBE NISSEN	43	(10)
Gifts
DAPHNE GOTTLIEB	53	(6)
And Half Again on Sunday
TERRY BARR	59	(16)
Steefola v. Jane Marie
RENÉE KAPLAN	75	(8)
A Child's Christmas in New York
KATHARINE WEBER	83	(4)
Another Quaquaversgist Puppycat
LEE KLEIN	87	(6)
One is Not a Jew
REBECCA WOLFF	93	(6)
Myself, a Half-Jew Among the Lilies
DANIELLE PAFUNDA	99	(8)
You Must Draw a Long Bead to Shoot a Fish
JEFF SHARLET	107	(12)
Untitled
MAYA GOTTFRIED	119	(6)
What to Do If Your Daughter Marries a Jew
MATTHEW SHINDELL	125	(10)
Glass Houses
JENNIFER TRAIG	135	(6)
The Awful Rowing
GEORGIANA COHEN	141	(8)
Dost Thou Know Who Made Thee?
JOYCE MAYNARD	149	(10)
Stone Steps
EMMA SNYDER	159	(10)
Language & Vein
DAN BEACHY-QUICK	169	(14)
Contributors	183