This book DOES have A Lot about the holidays, but now I’ll always remember that Purim is the Esther story and that Jewish children celebrate it every year in delightful little masque parties, you know.

I mean, the first time I wrote this review…. I don’t know. I wrote a lot about anti-Semitism, and I guess, I don’t know. I mean, you could say a lot about anti-Semitism, not least among us Christians, even today, liberal and conservative: different guises and disguises, different ways of passing the buck and playing denialism, you know. It’s a lot. But then also, Jews are not just the gas chamber victim people. I mean, Holocaust Remembrance Day is a real thing, and it should be a real thing, but it’s not like…. Like in “Labyrinth of Lies”, where the guy is going around in a daze almost and he says, “We Germans should wear black forever.” That’s not what Judaism is, obviously. Jews are not just there to collect or be receptacles for my goyish guilt, even if it takes some regard for Jews to truly realize this honestly. I guess sometimes we all just feel intense dysphoria around being part of some group or another that causes pain, you know. (But especially if it’s white Gentiles.)

That being said, I don’t know…. Like I said at first maybe I thought that the book had been bad too, since it was maybe a little bland and holiday-y; God I hate holidays—I don’t want to hear about there being others. But I guess holidays could be part of “making Jewish choices”, as another book has it, which could certainly matter for Jews, and it is part of one way to see the life-affirming aspects of Judaism, as being a particular way that particular people choose to live their lives, and not just seeing them as the Christmas crushers, the Israel lobby, the weird and irrelevant folk, the bad childhood memories, the guilt-inducers that Hitler crushed, or however people think about Jews when they have little engagement with the ideas of Judaism, or esteem for Jews.

The book does provide a decent introduction. I wish it would provide more comparative analysis of Judaism versus other religions, more detailed historical data and less emphasis on specific details of religious ceremonies and prayers. ( )

Introduction to Judaism: beliefs, life cycle, history, celebrations and holidays, biographies