Benyamin's Blog
In the new issue of Esquire magazine, disgraced former governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich calls himself “blacker than Barack Obama”. Not surprisingly, that caused quite a stir and a quick apology from Blago. What the media hasn’t written much about is the other person Blago compares himself to in that very same article: Mordechai.
In the course of a conversation, he is not only Galileo; he is Teddy Roosevelt and Robin Hood and Bobby Kennedy and Rocky Balboa. And Mordecai of the legend of Purim.
Purim?
“The Book of Esther.”
Purim?
“Yeah. And I’m Mordecai. Falsely accused. I didn’t do those things. This whole story is epic. What helps me get up every morning is, I’m fighting the fight for something much larger than me. I’m fighting for what is at the basis of what our country is supposed to be, a place where you’re presumed innocent, where if in fact you did something wrong, the system plays out in such a way where the truth comes out, not people being forced to lie and being squeezed to lie. If you love your country as I do, this is a fight worth fighting.”
You can read the entire Esquire interview here.
I recently wrote two essays which I wanted to share here, both of which are bizarre in their own way. Here are the links:
Slate: The little-know Jewish holiday of Christmas Eve. Seriously.
The Daily Beast: The Jewish condom magnate and the Nazis who stole his company.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Thanks!
The following article appeared in the San Antonio Jewish Journal, December 14, 2009:
The Jesus Journey
by Linda Kaufman
If you didn’t get to hear Benyamin Cohen when he spoke at the JCC during Jewish Book Month, you missed a real treat.
On a national book tour to promote his memoir, this delightful young man regaled us with snippets from his yearlong adventure exploring different churches as he sought to reconnect with his own faith.
Seems crazy, no? But in his book, MY JESUS YEAR, he reveals his difficulty in finding a spiritual connection to God within the Orthodox religion he grew up in.
Born into a family of “rabbinic rock stars,” our hero struggled from his youth with feelings of doubt and apathy concerning his Judaism. The church across the street from his home in Atlanta became the object of his desire as he wondered what life would be like without the endless rules that marked an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle.
Moving away from home during his college years, he couldn’t shake his nagging attraction to things worldly and Christian, even considering a Big Mac with cheese as a rebellion against his totally kosher upbringing.
But Jewish guilt kicked in and instead he visited a smoke-filled bar, exiting quickly after the smoke made him gasp for fresh air.
With characteristic self-deprecating humor, he added, “Years later a doctor confirmed what every Jewish male already knows - we’re allergic to everything.”
But his desire to look elsewhere for a meaningful religious experience could not be quieted. After obtaining the blessing of a rabbi who required him to wear a press pass and a kepah whenever he visited churches, the author set out on a Woody Allen-like journey.
He first found himself in a 15,000 member African-American megachurch where his presence is announced by the bishop (a friend has tipped off the spiritual leader of the church that he will be there) and his face appears on the two huge in-house TV screens as the congregation whoops and hollers, “Bless you, brother!”
His inner Jewish voice cries out, “Oh, God, forgive me.”
As the four-hour service continues with spirited music, animated dancing and loud preaching, Benyamin wonders whether the Jews at Mt. Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments might have been the first megachurch.
For the next year, he visits countless Christian denominations, awed by the different
expressions of the original New Testament church that have sprung up in the last two thousand years.
Completing his pilgrimage at the very church across the street from his boyhood home that first drew him to Christianity, Benyamin finds that it is a sparsely attended, dying church, hardly worthy of the fantasies it produced years before in his mind. It wasn’t the Garden of Eden after all.
His journey completed, like Dorothy before him, he clicks his heels together and whispers, “There’s no place like home.”
The prodigal son has satisfied his desire to explore Christianity and life outside the Orthodox confines, and happily resumes his place in the Jewish community.
His journey has made him able to be the Jew he always wanted to be, “one who’s jazzed about his Judaism.” Though he chronicles a serious journey of faith, he does so with characteristic Jewish humor and honesty.
In our family, there are those who are going the other direction, leaving their liberal Jewish upbringing and embracing a more orthodox Jewish lifestyle including becoming strictly kosher and “shomer Shabbas”(keepers of the Sabbath.)
With two of my husband’s post-college single grandchildren opting for kosher living as well as my first cousin’s son and wife (a young couple with their first child) choosing a strictly Orthodox path, I am fascinated with their choices as they seek to find meaningful Jewish lives.
The young people in our family who have chosen to be kosher say that it connects them to the generations before them who followed these same restrictions.
A friend recently told me that his choice to observe the rules of kashrut is to imbue every act, no matter how insignificant, with a sense of the sacred.
For one thing, keeping kosher is not as difficult as it once was. As I’ve learned from reading HADASSAH MAGAZINE, almost every city has restaurants that serve kosher meals.
They also are running an ad for a Kosher Cruise (wouldn’t Kruise be better advertising?) during the Passover holidays. You can experience keeping kosher while “kruising “the high seas in a luxury ship.
As I finish reading Benyamin Cohen’s book, I realize he never broke the rules of kashrut during his Jesus year. Since there are so many kosher restaurants available, I wonder if I should consider the opposite of what many in my generation did. Instead of keeping a kosher home, what if I only eat in kosher restaurants? It couldn’t hurt!
For more articles about the book, check out the media page.
I recently gave a 30-minute talk to the Faith Alliance of Metro Atlanta which Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasters recorded. Below is the recording, divided into 3 easy-to-digest videos:
For more videos, visit the Media page and scroll to the bottom.
Crazy story: I had the opportunity yesterday to interview Al Gore (as part of my day job). The interview, which actually took place at a synagogue, went great. At the end, Gore said to me, “I’ve been hearing a lot about your book. Lots of people are talking about it. You were in a mosh pit at a church. Sounds fascinating.”Of course I had a copy of My Jesus Year with me and autographed a copy for him. Now, if I could only get him to blurb my next book....
Just when you think you’ve heard it all comes this gem of a story. Jon Gosselin (of Jon and Kate tabloid fame) is now dating a Jewish woman and is considering converting to Judaism. The father of eight told an interviewer that he’s already consulted Rabbi Shmuley (aka America’s rabbi, Michael Jackson’s rabbi, Oprah’s rabbi, yada, yada, yada). After all, they can relate: Shmuley has nine kids.ParentDish.com published this quote from Jon:
I just went through Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur and learned about the new year and every Friday is the Shabbat dinner. I love challah bread. I’m learning about Jewish food, going to Zabar’s. I love that place. I’m learning about kosher and when not to order a bacon, egg and cheese and make an ass of myself. Hailey makes fun of me. My mom came to the city on Yom Kippur and asked where all the traffic was. I got from the West Side to Midtown in five minutes. She wants to come to the city every year on Yom Kippur.
If you like these bizarre stories at the intersection of pop culture and religion, follow me on Twitter. I post links to articles like this on a daily basis.
[Hat tip to Alana Newhouse at Tablet for the heads-up on this story.]
I had the opportunity to hang out with Jerry Springer last week. Believe it or not, it was actually the second time I met the over-the-top talk show host. I got to interview him a year ago for a profile I was writing about Jerry’s involvement with his Jewish faith. (For those wondering, many of relatives were killed in the Holocaust and he spends a lot of his off-time being very active in the Jewish community.) He’s actually a real sweet guy in person, nothing like you’d expect if you’ve ever seen his scandal-ridden shows. Anyway, I gave him a copy of “My Jesus Year”. He appreciated it and, with all the traveling he does, hopefully he’ll have a plane ride to read it on soon.
“My Jesus Year” comes out in paperback this week and, to celebrate, I created a book trailer to help promote the new edition. Hope you enjoy it...
