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An urgent exploration of how antisemitism has shaped Jewish identity and how Jews can reclaim Judaism on their own terms, by the celebrated White House speechwriter and author of the critically acclaimed Here All Along.
About the author
Sarah Hurwitz served as a White House speechwriter from 2009 to 2017, first as a senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama and then head speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama. She was the chief speechwriter for Hillary Clinton on her 2008 presidential campaign. Hurwitz is the author of Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life—in Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There), which was a finalist for two National Jewish Book Awards and the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. She has been featured throughout the media, from profiles in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, and The Guardian to appearances on the Today show, Morning Joe, and NPR. The Forward has twice named her one of 50 Jews who has impacted American life. Hurwitz is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School and was a 2017 Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard.
Summary
An urgent exploration of how antisemitism has shaped Jewish identity and how Jews can reclaim their tradition, by the celebrated White House speechwriter and author of the critically acclaimed Here All Along.
At thirty-six, Sarah Hurwitz was a typical lapsed Jew. On a whim, she attended an introduction to Judaism class and was astonished by what she discovered: thousands of years of wisdom from her ancestors about what it means to be human. That class sparked a journey of discovery that transformed her life.
Years later, as Hurwitz wrestled with what it means to be Jewish at a time of rising antisemitism, she wondered: Where had the Judaism she discovered as an adult been all her life? Why hadn’t she seen the beauty and depth of her tradition in those dull synagogue services and Hebrew school classes she’d endured as a kid? And why had her Jewish identity consisted of a series of caveats and apologies: I’m Jewish, but not that Jewish . . . I’m just a cultural Jew . . . I’m just like everyone else but with a fun ethnic twist—a dash of neurosis, a touch of gallows humor—a little different, but not in a way that would make anyone uncomfortable.
Seeking answers, she went back through time to discover how hateful myths about Jewish power, depravity, and conspiracy have worn a neural groove deep into the world’s psyche, shaping not just how others think about Jews, but how Jews think about themselves. She soon realized that the Jewish identity she’d thought was freely chosen was actually the result of thousands of years of antisemitism and two centuries of Jews erasing parts of themselves and their tradition in the hope of being accepted and safe.
In As a Jew, Hurwitz documents her quest to take back her Jewish identity, how she stripped away the layers of antisemitic lies that made her recoil from her own birthright and unearthed the treasures of Jewish tradition. With antisemitism raging worldwide, Hurwitz’s defiant account of reclaiming the Jewish story and learning to live as a Jew, without apology, has never been timelier or more necessary.
