The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt Author:Ruth Andrew Ellenson Twenty-eight of today's top Jewish women writers tell the truth about all the things their rabbis warned them never to discuss in public. — Do you feel guilty when too many good things happen to you? — Have you ever used Caller ID to dodge your mother's phone calls? — Are you sometimes tempted to give up on the idea of atonement and ... more »go get a pedicure on Yom Kippur?
The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt explodes with truth, humor, and insight into what it means to be a Jewish woman at the dawn of the 21st century. The women in this anthology bravely invite you along as they struggle to strike a balance between their heritage and their modern lives. Whether it's the pressure of hearing a grandmother's biological clock start to tick, the horror of being outted as a lesbian at your mother's Yiddish club, or the burden of being the only kid in Hebrew school who actually cares, their predicaments will make you laugh, cry, and howl in recognition.
One writer screws up the courage to tell her parents she's marrying a nice German boy, while another finds she can't live up to the Zionist ideals of her father. An Orthodox woman describes the constant pressure she feels to be perfect, and a rabbi tells us what it's like to be on the receiving end of other people's guilty confessions. Some give up the guilt altogether-like the author who refuses to go on a diet, pointing out that Golda Meir would never have been caught drinking Slim-Fast in the Knesset, or the writer who decides to RSVP no to every wedding, bat mitzvah, or family meal she doesn't actually want to attend.
So what happens when Jewish women join together to speak out? You blast away hackneyed stereotypes of nagging mothers and spoiled princesses and you get The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt-a hilarious, surprising moving and thoughtful book that captures all that is complicated and wonderful about being a Jewish woman today.
House of love and bragging / Aimee Bender --
Tell me about your mother / Molly Jong-Fast --
Among the holy schleppers / Jennifer Bleyer --
Guilt judo / Rachel Kadish --
What will they think? / Tova Mirvis --
The last Jewish American nerd / Dara Horn --
Holy guilt trip / Rabbi Sharon Brous --
American Express / Cynthia Kaplan --
Land of my father / Ayelet Waldman --
My private caller / Lori Gottlieb --
Philosophers with wombs / Rebecca Goldstein --
Mercy / Gina Nahai --
A grandmother's biological clock / Katie Roiphe --
Being fruitful / Binnie Kirshenbaum --
Expecting / Rebecca Walker --
The Monica metaphor / Lauren Grodstein --
Spot the Jew / Baz Dreisinger --
Girl meets goy / Francesca SegreÌ --
You sit in the dark, I'm coming out of the closet / Kera Bolonik --
True confessions of a JDate addict / Amy Klein --
Oy Christmas tree, oy Christmas tree / Laurie Gwen Shapiro --
Great, my daughter is marrying a Nazi / Jenna Kalinsky --
The New York Times divorce announcement / Elisa Albert --
The Yom Kippur pedicure / Daphne Merkin --
Big mouth, Jewish women and appetite / Wendy Shanker --