Former American Jewish Life editor Benyamin Cohen’s book, “My Jesus Year,†debuted today at #1 on Amazon.com’s Jewish bestseller list. The book catalogs the year Cohen, the son of an Orthodox rabbi, spent visiting Southern churches while trying to figure out why he found synagogue so unfulfilling.
Publisher’s Weekly has called it “a delicious olio of guilt, longing, surprise, wonder, unease and of course humor.†You can order the book online here, but if you happen to pick it up in a bookstore, take a photo of the display and send it to Cohen. He’ll pay you back with a shout-out on his blog.
Cohen also spent a half-hour with NPR’s Lynn Neary yesterday discussing the book. You can tune in to a recording of the broadcast here.
Former American Jewish Life editor Benyamin Cohen’s book, Cohen will be in LA for the Jewish Festival of Books – and who knows – maybe we can convince him to come back out in February…
I listened to part of the NPR interview and almost got a call on, except they ran out of time.
I’ve got to say, if I was a Christian I would have been pretty pissed off. It seemed just like sort of high-level slumming, and he apparently even masqueraded as a Catholic and went to confession. To say nothing of the fact that such a thing is assur, I’ve got to say I found it really quite offensive. I’m not a Christian, obviously, but I don’t think it is right to intrude upon other people’s sanctities under false pretenses.
I mean, how would we feel if, say, our own Tom Morrisey showed up at shul on Shabbes, said he was a Jew, got an aliyah just to, you know, see what it felt like, and then went on the radio and blabbed about it?
Ephraim, if a non-Catholic goes to obtain a sacrament under false pretense, it is considered a crime according to the Codex Iuris Canonici (code of Catholic organisational / administrative laws). What many don’t know is that most states in Western societies follow suit, so it could, indeed, be persecuted.
Slander of Catholics / Catholicism by halfwits appears pretty common over there; suppose it’s easier and sells better than having to deal with the issues of one’s own organized faith. And it’s not actually a Jewish thing either as Jewish eschatology has it that any righteous person will receive salvation regardless of faith. Many customs and even ways of thinking have been picked up from Catholicism, even the appreciation / adoration of rabbis particularly in Chasidism strongly resembles pre-existing Catholic adoration of saints. But I suppose halfwits will ignore all that for a few cheap jokes.
At least someone’s going to confession.
I wrote a book, too.
It is called “My Cheeses Year” about a lactose intolerant Jewish guy visits cheese stores and dairy farms each weekend in order to confront his affirmity.
Oh…. back story on the Jesus Year: Cohen is the editor of Jewish Life in America magazine. He was raised Orthodox in Atlanta. As a child, Cohen was curious and envious of the church across the street from his family’s home — Did the sun shine brighter there? Were wafers tastier than matzot? Cohen, as an adult, married a Jew by choice (a woman who was raised Baptist; she is the daughter of a minister). Cohen, who had a faith crisis, decided that maybe an exploration of Christianity could lead him back to Judaism. In the same way that my exploration of pork and bacon led me back to kashrut and vegetarianism
He began by visiting churches each Sunday. This book is his story of his crisis, his attempt to re-spark his Judaism, and his visits to oh so many churches of various styles and sizes.
=Larry
http://www.MyJewishBooks.com/sep08.html
oops… my error… Cohen edits American Jewish Life mag, not Jewish Life in America mag as i said above. (my mistake since i read right to left) hehe.
u probably know cohen from his weekly blurb: Torah from Dixie
or perhaps from Jewsweek magazine (www.jewsweek.com) which he edited until 2005
One of the callers said that she is an interfaith minister. She was raised catholic but she to convert to another religion in order to be an interfaith minister. So she said she converted to Reconstruction Judaism but she said that she still feels that Jesus was the Son of God. Leaving aside that a Reconstructionist conversion is probably not recognized by the Reform and Conservative, and definetly not by the Orthodox – how can she even think of herself as Jewish if she thinks that Jesus is the messiah? Can’t she see the fundemntal religious contradictions with this conversion? It’s treasonous to any religion. I have no objection to her being whatever faith she wants to be, but she has to understand that one can’t be both. Same with the whole Jews for Jesus thing.
I can understand his “crisis of faith” and even his desire to see if the grass is greener, etc.
There are just some lines that chould not be crossed, and pretending to be a Catholic and sneaking into confession is one of them. I didn’t get the impression that he did what he did just to make jokes about Christianity; I think he was “sincere”, whatever that might mean in this case. But I still think it was disrespectful and underhanded and that he should not have done it.
froylein, I’m pretty sure you meant “prosecuted”. He may very well be persecuted for his antics, but I doubt he’ll be prosecuted.
Freudian slip, perhaps?
Yeah, that “interfaith minister” was a hoot. Really sad. Just shows how much a Reconstructionist “conversion” is worth: less than bupkes.