{"id":6844,"date":"2013-03-05T18:41:07","date_gmt":"2013-03-05T22:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/?p=6844"},"modified":"2013-03-05T18:41:07","modified_gmt":"2013-03-05T22:41:07","slug":"the-novel-of-belief-and-jewish-american-demography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2013\/03\/the-novel-of-belief-and-jewish-american-demography.html","title":{"rendered":"“The Novel of Belief and Jewish-American Demography”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Two of my obsessions together at last!<\/p>\n

\u2026The most compelling characters in Zoe Heller\u2019s The Believers<\/em> (2009) and Joshua Henkin\u2019s The World Without You<\/em> (2012) are daughters Rosa and Noelle, each a ba\u2019ala teshuva<\/em> who \u201cconverts\u201d from the secular Judaism of her youth to Orthodoxy.\u00a0The Believers<\/em>, as its title indicates, is about belief of all kinds\u2014of what, if not the religious, we will<\/em> put our faith in. Henkin\u2019s first novel, Swimming Across the Hudson<\/em>, takes up a related theme as its protagonist grapples with the aftermath of his departure from the modern Orthodox faith in which he was raised.<\/p>\n

Even novels that aren\u2019t explicitly about belief have taken to depicting\u2014sometimes in great detail\u2014the lives of traditional believers. The imagined Alaskan Jewish community in Michael Chabon\u2019s The Yiddish Policeman\u2019s Union<\/em> is defined by the small but visible \u201cVerbover\u201d Hasidic sect. Chabon\u2019s corrupt, conspiring Verbovers are less sympathetic than Heller\u2019s sometimes abrasive but genuinely caring Monsey Orthodox, but in painting his Jewish world Chabon still needs<\/em> to include the Orthodox.<\/p>\n

Fiction isn\u2019t anything so simple or dull as cleverly-written sociology, but demography is one possible cause for this resurgent concern for belief and believers among Jewish-American novelists.\u00a0Last year\u2019s UJA-Federation New York Jewish Population Survey<\/a> showed sharp increases among the Orthodox and unaffiliated\/secular groups, while Conservative and Reform Judaism continued their long decline. The increase in New York\u2019s overall Jewish population was driven entirely by the growth among the Orthodox, now making up a full 40 percent<\/a> of New York\u2019s Jewish population\u2014and providing over 60 percent of Jewish children.\u00a0A more recent survey<\/a> has confirmed that while New York\u2019s Orthodox neighborhoods are growing, other Jewish neighborhoods are shrinking.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

more<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two of my obsessions together at last! \u2026The most compelling characters in Zoe Heller\u2019s The Believers (2009) and Joshua Henkin\u2019s The World Without You (2012) are daughters Rosa and Noelle, each a ba\u2019ala teshuva who \u201cconverts\u201d from the secular Judaism of her youth to Orthodoxy.\u00a0The Believers, as its title indicates, is about belief of all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[102],"class_list":["post-6844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-a-shandeh-for-the-goyim"],"yoast_head":"\n"The Novel of Belief and Jewish-American Demography"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Two of my obsessions together at last! ...The most compelling characters in Zoe Heller\u2019s The Believers (2009) and Joshua Henkin\u2019s The World Without You\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2013\/03\/the-novel-of-belief-and-jewish-american-demography.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""The Novel of Belief and Jewish-American Demography"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Two of my obsessions together at last! 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