Benyamin's Blog
Entries Filed Under “Press”
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.
“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...
Last Thursday, we were all shocked to see five rabbis rounded up with more than 30 other high profile people for corruption charges in New Jersey, including a bizarre charge of organ trafficking. I had the opportunity to write an article for Slate about it called “Organ Failure”:With the right ingredients of salaciousness and scandal, the news appeared to be straight out of a Hollywood screenplay: corrupt politicians, money laundering, people being arrested by the busload, raids on synagogues, an Apple Jacks cereal box stuffed with $97,000 in cash, and rabbis trafficking organs. Allegedly, one paid $10,000 to an impoverished Israeli for his or her kidney and tried to sell it for upward of $150,000 in the United States. The criminal complaint quotes the rabbi as saying he was in the organ business for a decade. (And in a you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up twist, it wasn’t even the day’s only story on Israelis trafficking human body parts.)
Read the entire story on Slate here...
Follow My Jesus Year on Twitter.
My quote appears on the third page of the article:
“I don’t find it offensive at all,” says Benyamin Cohen, the son and brother of Orthodox rabbis and the author of My Jesus Year, which recounts the tale of his tour through the world of Christianity. “If you’re not Jewish, I have no reason to expect you to follow my laws. I’d rather if people name their kid Cohen than if they name it Britney. At least Cohen means something.”Read the full article here.
Why do you think the majority of contemporary religious satire and parody is written by Jewish writers? Do Christians just not have a sense of humor?
Well, he’s not contemporary anymore, but Mark Twain did a retelling of the Adam and Eve story, of which I was completely unaware. Somebody told me about it recently and I picked it up and started reading it and had to stop because it was so great and so funny, it just made me feel terrible about myself.
But Twain is the exception. When you think of religious literary humor, one tends to think of Philip Roth and Woody Allen, or more recently A.J. Jacobs and Benyamin Cohen.
I don’t know why that is. It may have something to do with the fact that a Jew’s relationship with God is supposed to be one of wrestling. You’re constantly wrestling with God’s truths. And when you start to humanize the characters in the bible, they become more than just objects used to unravel moral lessons. That’s where the comedy starts to seep in.
You can read the full article here.
Books for Lent
Other recently published books that could serve as a guide for those who observe Lent by adding spiritual disciplines include “My Jesus Year: A Rabbi’s Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of His Own Faith,” by Benyamin Cohen.
This book, written by the son of an Orthodox Rabbi, offers a loving and rollicking look at life as a Christian from a fond visitor.
Cohen ends up in the mosh-pit at a Christian rock festival, at a Catholic confessional, and at Easter sunrise service at Stone Mountain, the Confederate memorial outside of Atlanta.
He manages to balance humor with holiness, and detached observation with genuine respect. The book becomes a worthwhile tour of Christianity for anyone, whether Christian or not.
And, here’s a link to the previous article I wrote for the Beast.
- Is the grass greener? -- The Jewish Independent
- Recommended book - Relevant Magazine
- My year of [fill in the blank] - New Hampshire Public Radio
- A Jew, Jesus, and Christian sub-culture -- HollywoodJesus.com
- Buried under books -- Christian blogger Michael Danner, a Mennonite pastor
I’m also told that the new issue of Relevant, my all-time favorite Christian pop culture magazine, has a review of the book in there.
by Ronda Robinson
The Jerusalem Post / 12.26.08
It’s Saturday night and a short funny Jewish guy reminiscent of Billy Crystal is holding court at Young Israel of Toco Hills. In fact, his initials also are BC.
Benyamin Cohen, Atlanta-born son of an Orthodox rabbi - the scion of a clan of “rabbinic rock stars” - is a homeboy here. “Most of you in this room probably know me. Some were probably here for my bris,” the 33-year-old journalist says to the 50 shul members and guests who have gathered to hear about his new book, My Jesus Year. “This is probably the first time you’ve had a talk about Jesus in shul.”
Cohen describes the elevator pitch for his book, published by HarperOne in October, as “rabbi’s son marries minister’s daughter, spends year going to church, comes out better Jew.” (His wife, Elizabeth, is a convert to Judaism.) Like Billy Crystal’s character in the 1991 movie City Slickers, Cohen was plagued by a crisis of sorts and went on a journey to find renewal and purpose. Only instead of traveling to the Wild West, the rabbi’s son tamed his curiosity in the Bible Belt.
Cohen stresses that he wasn’t looking to convert. Instead, he wanted to find new meaning in Judaism. The founder and editor of a now-defunct national magazine called American Jewish Life and the on-line magazine Jewsweek, he yearned to learn the secrets behind Christians’ religious joy and enthusiasm.
It all began in his youth, when, as he writes in My Jesus Year, “religion was served to us on a silver platter - whether we wanted it or not. We kept kosher, we observed the Sabbath, we prayed three times a day. No questions asked. These were all givens. I went to a preschool called the Garden of Eden. Except in this kindergarten, sin was not an option.”
In preschool, he tasted the “sweet nectar of forbidden indulgence” by gobbling up non-kosher Nerds candy after school. His mother died just after he came off the religious high of celebrating his bar mitzva. And by the time his father, the principal of a Jewish high school in Atlanta, remarried a few years later, Cohen had grown into an angry teenager.
For years he looked longingly at the church across the street from his house on High Haven Court. Each Sunday morning, khaki-clad parishioners, with smiling kids in tow, emerged from shiny minivans and walked into the stained-glass sanctuary. He tried to imagine what it would feel like to not be “strangled by the myriad rules of an Orthodox lifestyle.” As Cohen writes about the Christians across the street, “Not only did they have a life that was more fun and exciting than mine, but they seemed to be enjoying - nay, embracing - their religion all at the same time. It was a paradigm shift for me. Religion equals happiness. How could that be?”
Cohen had the chance to find out years later. In the name of journalism, he spent a summer checking out several churches and writing a magazine article about the experience. On his iPhone he still has a photo from that time: It shows an actor dressed as a hassid in the middle of a choir at a Baptist church.
The article grew into a book, for which Cohen immersed himself in Christianity for a year, praying with a host of churches, from Catholic to Pentecostal. An Orthodox rabbi in Atlanta, whom the author declines to name, blessed the endeavor under two conditions: Cohen had to wear a press pass so that everyone knew he was in church to observe and not to pray. And he had to have on a kippa so they knew he was Jewish.
Cohen’s odyssey took him to such odd places as Ultimate Christian Wrestling matches and the bowels of a 1,760-square-meter African Hebrew Israelite compound in Atlanta.
At the former, “good” wrestlers do battle against “evil” wrestlers. Fallen wrestlers are actually resurrected at these matches, Cohen reports from the sidelines. At the latter, he learns that African Hebrew Israelites live in Dimona as well as major American cities. “And despite public opinion to the contrary, the Black Hebrews all consider themselves Jewish.”
Speaking of Black Hebrews, Cohen reveals in an interview that the only negative reaction to his book, ironically, was from some Jews for Jesus. “Why didn’t you come to us?” they demanded. As he explains later, “It didn’t cross my mind. I don’t look at Jews for Jesus as a church.”
Orthodox Jews who have gotten past the cover with the “J” word on it have read the book and recommended it to fellow members of the tribe. “They were grappling with the same issues I did,” Cohen says, referring to the monotony he found in daily prayers recited for years.
Still Jewish, still Orthodox, he found the proverbial pot of gold in his own backyard. “When I set out on this journey, I had been comparing our boring Yom Kippur service to the high energy of a gospel choir, but you can’t equate the two,” Cohen writes. “What I should have been doing is looking beyond the synagogue’s walls. There’s more to being Jewish than what goes on in the confines of the sanctuary. And that’s true for any religion, not just my own.”
The self-described prodigal son, for whom “rebellion” meant going straight to college without studying first in Israel, had come home jazzed about his Judaism. Gospel bands helped inspire him. “I have never heard ‘Adon Olam’ sung so beautifully.” Megachurch ceremonies with 15,000 believers and a Jesus JumboTron six-meter-tall TV screen made him realize he liked the intimacy of his synagogue’s small hashkama early service, where he could tap into the purity of prayer the way he had as a child.
In the end, Cohen the cynic, number five of six children in a clan of rabbinic rock stars, replaced his apathy with enthusiasm.
“It’s a story of faith I think anyone can relate to,” he says while selling books at the Atlanta Press Club’s annual Holiday Author Party. “You don’t have to be a rabbi’s son.”
***
Read the original article here: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230111695129&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Just got back from a big event. I was one of the featured authors at the annual Atlanta Press Club Holiday Party at the Georgia Aquarium tonight. The walls in the ballroom where the event took place are made up mostly of glass and you can actually watch whales swim pass. (The space is actually available for kosher catering by renowned chef Wolfgang Puck, in case you’re interested.) It was a pretty cool event to get to shmooze with my fellow journalists. This photo is of me and two of my mentors. On the right is Ed Bean, my editor at the Fulton County Daily Report. And to the left is Vince Coppola who, readers of My Jesus Year know, is the guy who took me to Confession. In case you’re wondering, I’m the one without any facial hair.
Benyamin Cohen gets Jewish with Jesus
Los Angeles Jewish Journal
by Brad A. Greenberg
Benyamin Cohen is not someone you’d expect to find at church.
The son of an Orthodox rabbi, the founding editor of the now-defunct American Jewish Life magazine, Cohen committed to marrying within the faith to the point that during his 20s, which preceded JDate, Cohen flew from his home in Atlanta to the deeper Jewish dating pool of New York twice a month.On a scale of Yiddishkayt, Cohen was a super Jew.
And yet there he was one day, projected 20-feet-tall, for all to see, on “Jesus’ JumboTron.”
“Oh, God,” Cohen thought, “forgive me.”
This scene, which took place at a black megachurch in Atlanta, opens Cohen’s just-released memoir, “My Jesus Year: A Rabbi’s Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of His Own Faith” (HarperOne, $24.95), named by Publishers Weekly as one of 2008’s best religion books. Cohen’s experience on the first Sunday of his year-long spiritual quest makes clear that he won’t just be able to blend in as he visits Baptist churches and Pentecostal revivals and Christian wrestling events.
His story is also laden with Jewish guilt, a theme that runs throughout Cohen’s Jewish journey, as if hell hath a special place for wandering Jews.
Cohen, 33 (the “same age as Jesus when he died”), never thought he would find himself worshipping God with the help of a gospel choir. Yet all his life he had been tantalized by Christianity, gazing from the outside at the seemingly easier lives that Christian children led. While Cohen observed the Sabbath, his Christian neighbors played baseball; while he kept kosher, they ate bacon cheeseburgers; while he said a blessing after using the bathroom, they just washed their hands.
“I am, for better or worse, burdened for all eternity by my religion,” Cohen writes.
And over time it began to feel it was for worse. Judaism’s rules and ritual left Cohen feeling a bit crazy. Attending synagogue, praying, worshipping God, all these things had become rote, stripped of value. Cohen felt spiritually suffocated by tradition.
“What kind of religion was it that worshiped minutiae over meaning?” he writes. “Don’t get me wrong. There are brilliance and beauty in this faith. I just haven’t found them yet.”
Jesus, as you can imagine from the book’s title, helped Cohen find that brilliance and beauty. Cohen kept his journalistic guard up and didn’t drink the Jesus juice, though he did take communion. But by spending a year with Christians, Cohen’s own faith was invigorated.
“Stepping outside my comfort zone and hanging out with other people gave me a fresh perspective,” said Cohen, who will be on a panel and sign copies of his book on Sunday as part of the Celebration of Jewish Books at American Jewish University.
In a phone interview, he told The Journal that his journey got out of his system what had been gnawing at him for years. “I finally got to taste the forbidden fruit. I think that was always a hurdle in my spiritual growth. No matter what, I was always looking across the street at the Christians. I was finally able to experience that, and I learned the grass isn’t always green at the church across the street. And I learned to appreciate my own Judaism.”
His Jewishness was, in essence, born again.
“I’m getting a fresh start and being reborn,” Cohen writes a little more than halfway through his journey. “At the Georgia Dome, among forty thousand Christians, on Easter, the day of resurrection.”
I had looked forward to reading Cohen’s memoir -- written in the Jewish tradition of A.J. Jacobs’ “The Year of Living Biblically,” Mark I. Pinsky’s “A Jew Among the Evangelicals” and Daniel Radosh’s “Rapture Ready! Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture.” Cohen’s tale seemed particularly poignant for me because it was, at heart, a mirror image of my own travels.
I joined The Jewish Journal last year for reasons that were as personal as they were professional. It wasn’t until I became a journalist that I learned more than the most basic details of Judaism and Jewish history -- this despite three Jewish grandparents and a face that can’t evade the advances of Chabadniks.
On my own Jewish journey, I’ve learned a lot about my family history, but I’ve also learned how to be a better Christian; not by pretending to keep kosher or observe the Sabbath -- not through some Messianic hybrid -- but by applying Jewish cultural values to Christian observance and appreciating the common ground between two faiths that worship the same God.
Cohen’s experiences have been quite different from mine, but the life lesson -- that Christians and Jews can learn a lot about their own faiths from the other -- is the same.
Cohen’s interest is not in celebrating “Jon Stewart Judaism,” though he worships in that temple every night. Cohen wants to engender, or at least encourage, excited-to-be-observant Jews. And, after 52 weeks spent going to church and to Christian rock concerts and even to confession, Cohen found that Christianity can reveal many secrets to the Jewish kingdom.
In the way Christians use pop culture, such as the cartoon “VeggieTales,” to teach biblical stories and spread the gospel; in the way megachurches are so welcoming to newcomers -- even being greeted by a stranger with a kiss made Cohen feel uncomfortable -- and in the way Christians get big organizations, like the Atlanta Braves, to target them with Faith Night at the ballpark.
“We shouldn’t take their theology,” Cohen said, “but just from a marketing perspective, there is so much we can learn from Christianity.”
Near the end of the book, Cohen thanks Jesus for changing his life, for breathing new life into an ancient faith that’s been in his family since Aaron. And he sounds a lot like a Christian in free-form prayer.
“Thank you, Jesus, for making me less of a cynic,” Cohen writes. “Thank you for teaching me that prayers can be recited in many ways and in many languages, and that God listens anyway. Thank you for miracles, even those of the golden dental variety. Thank you for small synagogues. For big churches. For gospel choirs. For holidays. Thank you for gratitude. For sickness and health. For repentance. For the lessons gleaned from death and loss. And, most of all, thank you for rebirth.”
Link to the original article: http://www.jewishjournal.com/books/article/benyamin_cohen_gets_jewish_with_jesus_20081106/
And so I guess it was inevitable that the day would come when I would get interviewed by that very radio show -- Way of the Master Radio. It’s hosted by Todd Friel, a well-known evangelist. I assumed the interview would be a lot like the time I was on a Catholic radio show when a priest and I both shed a little light on the funnier aspects of our respective religions. This morning’s interview opened with some traditional Jewish music, funny for an evangelical radio show, so I assumed this interview would be light like the others. But soon after we got started, it turned into a theology lesson and conversion effort.
The truth is I don’t mind. Todd’s faith tells him to reach out to the unconverted. I respect that. I just find it strange because I spent an entire year going to church and not once did someone try to convert me. And then came this interview. Not to mention that this comes on the heels of Stephen Baldwin trying to convert me yesterday. Yes, that Stephen Baldwin. I’ll write about that experience in an upcoming post.
In the meantime, here’s a clip of the radio interview from this morning with Todd. Despite the efforts to have me jump over the proverbial fench of faith, I had a good time. Sit back and enjoy.
I’m on the cover of the this week’s edition of the Atlanta Jewish Times. I guess nothing else of import happened this past week. Thanks to the multi-tasking Marcy J. Levinson who both wrote the story and shot the photo for the cover (she’s also getting married this weekend) . This story means a lot since I actually used to work at the Atlanta Jewish Times as a staff writer about nine years ago, so everything’s come full circle.
Cover Story
How Cohen Got His Jew Back
Atlanta Jewish Times
11.7.08
by Marcy J. Levinson
This is the story of how Cohen got his Jew back. Stella got her groove back in Terry McMillan’s award winning book, so here’s the background on native Atlantan Benyamin Cohen, who as an Orthodox Jew, needed a church-going year to find out what all the Christian hype was about, and to find his way back to a more meaningful Judaism.
From the experience this 33-year-old not only got his Jew back, but managed to land his first book deal with HarperOne and sign on for a national book tour. Along the way he had many funny, and several meaningful experiences both in and out of church, but more than that, he got his Jew back.
Cohen said that growing up in Atlanta as the son of the former Yeshiva Atlanta High School director and rabbi, Herbert Cohen, was a regular Orthodox upbringing. Prayers three times a day, prayers before and after many daily activities, and in the south, well, living across the street from a church.
He had a longing to go to church, he said. He wanted to see what Christians got to do. In his 30s, with the support of his wife, Elizabeth, and a blessing from an Orthodox rabbi, he got to fulfill that dream with only two rules: wear his kippah at all times, and his press pass. The results of his church crusade are documented in My Jesus Year: A Rabbi’s Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of His Own Faith.
Unabashedly the outgoing Cohen, known in Atlanta for his writing ability, was off and running. Kippah clad and with press pass in his pocket or around his neck, he took in the sights, sounds, fanaticism and excitement of the Christian world in which he immersed himself. From the summer of 2006 - 07 Cohen church hopped, made pre-arrangements with insular church groups such as the African Hebrew Israelites and the Mormon Church to get in the door. But he said he went on this journey with the blessing of an Atlanta rabbi. The rabbi has not, and will not be named, Cohen said - claiming reporter/rabbi confidentiality. Joking aside, Cohen said he promised not to tell the name of the rabbi, for no other reason than it was a promise before the final book went to press.
At the outset, Cohen said, some people were perplexed by his concept. “I think a lot of people when they hear about it they are hesitant. Now that they have seen the finished product, are like, ‘okay, I get it,’” he said.
In the course of his year, Cohen attended the Megafest in downtown Atlanta, Faith Days at a Braves game, Baptist, Methodist, evangelical and Catholic churches, to name just a few. The most intense moment in this journey was during confession at a Catholic church. “Going to confession was certainly the most scary part of the year,” he said. His friend told him that confession was only for Catholics but as in a journalistic leap of faith, he entered the confessional area. He opted for the screened side where the priest could not see his yarmulke. Cohen said his Catholic friend had walked him through what to say, but after all the memorization of lines, he froze when the priest asked him what he was there to confess.
Cohen said, “I froze. I forgot, oh shoot, I have to confess something.” So, in an honest response Cohen said to the priest, “I feel distant from my religion.” From that confession he got a response that affected him - the priest told him to attend services more regularly, even if he didn’t feel like it, to be a part of the congregation. He didn’t say which one exactly, and Cohen said that moment impacted him. “It was really something poignant,” he recalled.
Cohen said there were many surreal events along the way.
A Saturday for example was filled with synagogue activities at either of shuls where he and his wife are members, and the next day he was by himself checking out churches.
“At a lot of the churches I was treated like a rock star. People were poking and prodding at me, wanting to ask me questions when I wanted to know about them,” he said.
Even his father, who is a rabbi in Texas, approved of his son’s book. More effectively, he helped his son edit the manuscript.
“He has a degree in English and he would call and say, ‘you know that place where you write about us arguing? Well, you left out a comma,’” said Cohen.
Cohen said he is proud of this book and all it entails. Although his wife, the daughter of a Methodist preacher who converted to Judaism prior to meeting Cohen, is a “very private person,” he said, “At the same time, she’s extremely proud. Her Christian family, they are getting a kick out of this.”
He found his way to a better relationship with his father; he’s got a supportive wife and two happy dogs, a stellar book deal, and a new-found and much needed appreciation for his own religion. He said, “This is what I am leaving on. If I were to die today, this is what I am leaving on.”
And that’s how Cohen got his Jew back.
***Review alongside the cover story***
Benyamin Cohen’s writing turns from the usual news reporting that he’s known for on a local level, to a brain-to-the-keyboard memoir about a year he spent church-hopping to get closer to Judaism. Yes, the son of a rabbi, in his tell-all book about his church experiences puts in writing, what many may only think to themselves.
This hysterical book is literally one of those “laugh out loud” books that can be imitated, but never duplicated. This is the perfect example of an Orthodox guy with a quasi-unorthodox sense of humor and the guts to put it on paper.
One of the best quotes in the book, where Cohen talks about moving off to college and living on his own, involves the temptations he was faced with.
“As for me, I wanted to date a shiksa, a gentile girl, wrapped in bacon, but all I could do was order cable. My big defiant act was watching the Cartoon Network, something that had been denied to me as a kid ...What kind of heretic was I when I was in my midtwenties and my biggest vice was watching The Smurfs?” But funny stories aren’t the only reasons to read this book -It has a deeper meaning about one man’s journey that could be the journey of any man or woman - Jewish, Christian or Hindu. As Cohen carries the reader on his guilted and restless Jewish soul, he brings the reader home with him as everything in this book comes full circle.
Link to the original article: http://jtonline.us/main.asp?SectionID=23&SubSectionID=58&ArticleID=5866&TM=39313.44
Publisher’s Weekly, the book industry magazine, has just released its list of the best books of the year and ... drumroll, please ... they decided to put ‘My Jesus Year’ on the list. This is the book’s first big award. Hopefully, it’ll be the first of many.
Book Review: My Jesus Year
Shelf Awareness Magazine
10.31.08
by Harvey Freedenberg
In this strikingly original memoir, Benyamin Cohen, the son of an Orthodox rabbi, spends a year striving to rejuvenate his Jewish faith in an unlikely place--among the Christians of his native Georgia. My Jesus Year stirs together keen-eyed journalism and a spiritual quest to create a book that can be read both for its heartfelt examination of one man’s religious faith and as a revelatory tour of the landscape of Christian life in the U.S. today.
Despite a lifelong fascination with Christianity (he grew up in a house across the street from a Methodist church), Cohen makes it clear he’s not looking for a new faith to supplant his traditional Judaism. Throughout his “Jesus Year” he never abandons his Jewish practice, praying three times daily and adhering to Judaism’s myriad and often arcane ritual commandments. But it’s that very ritual that’s transformed him into “an observant Jew who simply went through the motions while failing to reach the spiritual depths of being a member of the tribe.” Through his intense exposure to Christianity he’s hoping to discover a spiritual elixir to refresh his feelings about his own faith.
Like a hungry diner at an all-you-can-eat buffet, Cohen strives to sample every variety of Christian practice. He spends a Sunday morning with thousands of worshippers in a megachurch, accompanies two young Mormon missionaries to a session with one of their converts and visits a Trappist monastery. He’s perplexed by the appeal of Ultimate Christian Wrestling and even enlists a Catholic friend to sneak him into a confessional. Cohen’s account is made more intriguing by the fact that his wife is the daughter of a Methodist minister who herself had converted to Judaism before they met. Her family’s Christmas gift to him of a Talmud is one of the story’s more startling moments. Focusing less on theology and more on what William James called the “varieties of religious experience,” he’s refreshingly nonjudgmental, refusing to yield to the temptation to condescend to the faith of others. In contrast to Shalom Auslander, one of his Orthodox contemporaries who raged against his traditional upbringing in the recent memoir, Foreskin’s Lament, Cohen substitutes an appealing angst and self-deprecating humor for corrosive rage.
By the time Cohen reaches the end of his journey he strikes us as a mature Dorothy concluding, after her visit to Oz, “There’s no place like home.” Or, as he puts it more colorfully, and with only the slightest touch of irreverence, “Hanging out with Jesus has made me a better Jew.” Hanging out with Benyamin Cohen in this spirited, spiritual memoir offers its own ample pleasures. --Harvey Freedenberg
Shelf Talker: In this heartfelt and captivating memoir, a rabbi’s son goes searching among Christians to find his Jewish faith.
Link to the original article: http://news.shelf-awareness.com/nview.jsp?appid=411&j=572847#2567677
My first TV gig was a smooth experience. CNN sent a car to pick me up from my house. Got to the studio 15 minutes later, was in and out of makeup in five minutes, and was on set with plenty of time to spare. Got to chat a bit with the anchor, TJ Holmes, during commercial breaks leading up to our segment. He’s a cool, laid back guy. And the producers wired me up with a mic, earpiece, and enough confidence boosting to make me not too nervous. Before I knew it, the taping was over, the car took me back home, and I was in my living room watching a Tivo’d recording of the interview just an hour after I left my house. All said, it was a productive hour.
Orthodox Jew, on a journey back to his faith
By Christopher Quinn
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
10.25.08
Here I am, a five-foot-two bespectacled Jewish kid, in a mosh pit of faith in a sea of fifteen thousand roused African-Americans at the New Birth megachurch in Lithonia, Georgia... . I am just trying to blend in, hoping I won’t stand out too much.
Just as such hopeful --- and unfortunately fleeting --- thoughts are swirling through my mind, one of a dozen camera operators focuses on me. And before I know it, there I am, my face twenty feet tall on the two screens hanging from the ceiling in front of the amphitheater. My Jewish face on Jesus’ JumboTron for all to see.
Oh, God, forgive me.
-- Benyamin Cohen
And there began an Orthodox Jew’s counterintuitive and funny yearlong sojourn in Georgia churches. Cohen is a Jack Kerouac searching for a way back to his own faith on the Bible Belt’s gospel road in his book “My Jesus Year” (HarperOne, $24.95).
Fueled by curiosity and guilt, dread and religious passion, Cohen spent 12 months of Sundays immersed in everything Christian, from the quiet uniformity of Episcopal services to the free-form shouts of tiny Pentecostal churches. He visited Christian rock concerts and a Jesus-themed professional wrestling show. In doing so, he opened his own eyes, as he will open his readers’.
Cohen’s experiences will be recognized by any person who has ever felt embarrassingly out of place, or who has offered up a defiant question to God, or who has been the prodigal who returned home.
I spoke to him about his growing up the son of an Orthodox rabbi in Atlanta and what he discovered on his strange (to him) trip into the world of church. This is an edited version of that conversation.
Q: Why did you decide to go to churches?
A: One of my motivating factors for this entire journey was: Why are Christians so excited about Christianity, and Jews are not excited about Judaism?
Because most synagogues, especially the nonorthodox, you go a couple of times a year, not on a weekly basis. But church parking lots are always full. That was the little spark, that was like, what are they doing in there that is getting people back on a weekly basis when you could easily be sleeping in on Sunday? What are they doing that is so much fun? That was kind of the initial question I had, and obviously, I expanded it to: “What can I learn to make myself enjoy my own Judaism more and come to terms with who I am?”
Q: What is the answer to that last question?
A: Growing up a rabbi’s son, it’s all second nature to me... . A lot of my friends became religious, but I was never able to do that on my own. This allowed me in some way to go outside my religion and look at it from a different angle and be able to re-engage with it in a fresh way. I learned to appreciate my Judaism more because I was able to look at it from the outside.
Q: Is there something that happened that makes you think, “I’m glad I am Jewish because ...”?
A: Well, Jewish prayer services can be boring sometimes. And I naively thought if we had a 100-person gospel choir and lots of dancing and tambourines, it would be more exciting. I learned that it is exciting, but it is not my cup of tea. I realized I can no longer be jealous of that because I have experienced it and know on some level that I enjoy our simpler services.
Q: Do religious people need to experience something outside their faith to understand their belief?
A: People who are brought up religious need to do something to understand their faith. I chose to do this interesting experiment. I think we need to do it on our own level, whether that’s going on a spiritual journey or asking yourself why you are doing this?
Q: How is life for you now in Atlanta?
A: I love living in the Bible Belt, where there are more churches than Starbucks... . My Jewish friends in New York tell me, “Oh, it must be really hard to be a Jew in this town [Atlanta] because there are so many religious Christians.” And I am like, no, it’s just the opposite. They are so much on the same wavelength. They get it and are much more accepting. I’m like, you’re religious? I’m religious too, give or take a Jesus.
Link to the original article: http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2008/10/25/jesus.html
Jewish author Benyamin Cohen asks, ‘WWJD?’
Creative Loafing
10.25.08
by Debbie Michaud
When Atlanta native and former editor of American Jewish Life Benyamin Cohen felt his Jewish faith faltering, he did what any other lost soul in the Bible Belt would do - he went to church.
The son of an orthodox rabbi, Cohen spent a year going from Christian rock festival to megachurch service to Catholic confession on a quest for higher learning. He chronicles his experiences in the funny and insightful memoir My Jesus Year. Cohen appears at the Barnes & Noble in Buckhead this Sunday and again at the MJCCA’s 17th annual Book Festival in November.
I was particularly intrigued by the following quote of yours: “What are they [Christians] doing so right that we Jews are doing so wrong? Is their church experience simply more fun?” Would you describe your pre-book perceptions of Christians and modern Christianity and explain what you mean by “right” and “wrong” in the above statement?
Wow, that’s a tough question. I never looked at it like that. I certainly don’t see one religion as being right and another as being wrong. What I do think, though, is that there are a lot of aspects - in any religion - that has room for improvement. Judaism may be thousands of years old, but that doesn’t mean we can’t improve on, say, how we reach out to newcomers. Churches do an amazing job of outreach and marketing themselves to new visitors. In the book, I tell a story of how I got preferential treatment (first-time visitor parking in the front next to the handicapped spots) at a megachurch in Lithonia. Once I walked inside, I was treated like a rock star. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same thing when a wandering Jew walks into a synagogue for the first time. That’s my long way of saying we’re doing something “wrong” and Christians are doing something “right”.
So, your mission was ” to understand why Christians are so excited about Christianity -- hoping to find the key to reinvigorating [your] own flagging enthusiasm for Judaism.” What made Christianity look so exciting to you and why do you think that religion should be fun and exciting? (Because I have to say - I was raised Catholic and that’s not so much fun.)
Ha ... I actually figured that out during my journey; Catholics have a lot in common with Jews - boring services, guilt, etc. The truth is, one of my favorite chapters in the book is the one where I went to Catholic confession. On the one hand, it felt so foreign. On the other, it felt so right.
To answer your question, I think anything that’s forbidden is, by definition, tempting on some level. Growing up the son of an Orthodox rabbi here in Atlanta, I was constantly told what I couldn’t do. I couldn’t eat unkosher food, I couldn’t have a girlfriend, I couldn’t watch cartoons on Saturday. These were all things my Christian counterparts could have. Christianity, and all the freedom it represented to someone like me, was my snake, my apple, and my Garden of Eden all wrapped into one.
As for why religion should be “fun and exciting”... I grew up with religion being forced down my throat, which is the furthest thing from being fun and exciting. And from personal experience, I can tell you that’s not the way to get people interested and engaged in their faith. When I have children of my own, I certainly don’t want to force Judaism on them; yet, at the same time, I want them to be religious. It’s that secret ingredient that I was searching for during this year.
You say you’re from a family of “rabbinic rock stars.” What do you mean by that?
My dad’s a rabbi, my three brothers are all rabbis, my older sister married a rabbi, and my younger sister works in Jewish education. I’m the only one who didn’t go into the family business. They’re rabbinic rock stars ... I’m more like the roadie.
There’s an underlying notion in the book that Christians have stronger ties to pop culture than Jews. How would you respond to the argument that not only are Jews a huge part of the entertainment industry, but that their work is often more culturally relevant?
Yes, Steven Spielberg and Jon Stewart and countless other members of the tribe play a major role in the entertainment industry. But my point is exactly that - despite the fact that Jews are so prevalent in Hollywood there is very little “Jewish” paraphernalia in pop culture. I wrote a whole chapter on the myriad Christian toys, board games, Jesus candy, etc. Have you ever seen a VeggieTales cartoon? We have nothing like that. All we have all are just chintzy knock-offs.
You seemed enamored initially with some of the more gimmicky aspects of Christianity, TV preachers and the like. How did you separate the “real” from the hack?
There’s a phrase in Hebrew called “Mi toch shelo lishmah, bah lishmah.” It basically translates to, “Go into something for the wrong reason, and eventually you will do it for the right reason.” I think the same can be said about my journey into Christendom. Their slick TV preachers or a whole host of other peripheral aspects may have been what initially tempted me, but what eventually kept me on the pilgrimage and taught me life lessons was the actual practice of Christianity. Not to mention the Christians I met along the way, most of them fine exemplars of Jesus’ teachings.
Did you achieve all that you’d hoped with this experiment?
I did, and more. I had initially hoped to just cross Christianity off my “bucket list” and hoped it would make me a better Jew. Which it did. But I learned so much more. I learned that no religion holds the copyright on God. There are many pathways to God and we all connect with the Divine in our unique way. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. And Amen to that.
Link to the original article: http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/freshloaf/2008/10/25/jewish-author-benyamin-cohen-asks-wwjd/
OK, so I just found out that I’m going to be on CNN (yes, that CNN). I guess it’s a slow news week. So when you’re getting dressed for church on Sunday, turn on CNN at 7:30 AM and you’ll see me being interviewed live (!) for about three minutes. Don’t blink.
Interview: Benyamin Cohen finds Jesus, becomes a better Jew
A one on one interview with Jewish author Benyamin Cohen about his book “My Jesus Year: A Rabbi’s Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of His Own Faith”
BraveNewTraveler.com
10.24.08
by Olivia Giovetti
Ask Benyamin Cohen, and you’ll find that there’s a 50/50 chance you’re putting on your shoes in the wrong way.
However, the son of a rabbi (whose wife even became a member of the Tribe) and former editor-in-chief of American Jewish Life will also tell you that for a time he wondered if going to church was more fun than a Saturday morning at temple.
What started out as a month in the summer visiting different churches in the Atlanta area for an article for his Jewish version of Rolling Stone soon, with the help of a book deal, became a year full of Evangelical escapades, Baptist benders, and Christian carousing.
Yet beneath the big-picture trip along the Bible Belt was an even larger inner journey for Cohen.
In between Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and the release for his memoir-cum-travelogue, My Jesus Year, we chatted about that journey.
BNT: Born into a very Jewish family, how religious did you consider yourself growing up? How religious do you consider yourself to be now?
BENJAMIN: I grew up the son of an Orthodox rabbi who built a 1000-square-foot synagogue onto the side of our house. So I guess you could say I was religious.
We kept kosher, observed the Sabbath, and kept the 611 other laws prescribed in the Old Testament and hyper-explained in the thousands of Aramaic pages that make up the 20 encyclopedia-sized volumes of the Babylonian Talmud.
Odd items, too, like not being able use an umbrella on the Sabbath, or being told to put my right shoe on before my left one. This was how Judaism was taught to me as a kid--as one long legal theories class.
Now as adult, no longer living under the rabbinic roof of my father, I am able to experience Judaism in a new light. I no longer feel forced to do these things, but instead choose to do them on my own.
It’s an invigorating experience and one that came about because of the journey I took for
How did you make the jump from church wonder/envy as a kid to the adult notion of positioning church as an exotic destination (especially to members of the tribe)? Has this been something that stuck with you through the course of your life?
I don’t think our childhood sense of wonder ever really disappears. Not to mention that basic human psyche dictates that we always desire the things we can’t have.
Put those two things together and church became my snake, apple, and Garden of Eden all rolled into one. It simply became something I could no longer avoid if I had any notion of growing spiritually.
What compelled you to continue seeking out the Jesus experience once the article became a book?
I first spent just a summer going to church. While that short exposure to Christianity made for a good pitch for a magazine style piece, it left me unfulfilled in the spirituality department.
Would you consider this your first religious trip, or have you done the Israel tour as well? If so, how would you compare your religious experiences (no pun intended) in the American South versus the Holy Land?
I’ve been to Israel a couple times (my mother is buried there) and, truth be told, the Holy Land never really did anything for me on a spiritual level.
I didn’t have any “Aha” moment there. I guess the reason is because I’ve been on a constant religious journey my entire life. Not a day has gone by where Judaism wasn’t always front and center in my mind.
Even on the most basic level--from what kind of food I can eat to reciting a blessing every time I use the restroom (yet another Jewish law), my religion has never stopped being a strong force in my life.
In the New Birth mega church story, you mention hoping to blend in (or at least not stand out too much). Ironically, a sentiment shared by many intrepid travelers who want to meld with their surroundings (and the surrounding people). In the end, do you think it was better to blend in or stick out?
Being the only Jew in church is not the most comfortable situation to be in. Having everyone know that you’re the only Jew in church is even more uncomfortable.
Almost everywhere I went, I wore a Jewish skullcap and press pass so I stuck out like...well, like a Jew in church. It certainly ended up being a better situation for me.
Despite my initial feelings of awkwardness, it allowed churchgoers to not only notice the stranger among them, but engage me in conversation as well. It’s how I met many of the people from my journey.
The overarching journey of this trip seems to be an inner journey--the son of an Orthodox rabbi coming to terms with his own religion and spirituality. However, you have numerous interactions with natives to the Christian/Catholic faith (and a few mentions of invasion of personal space). How did these external encounters influence your internal journey?
I’m certainly a guy who likes having privacy and enjoying my personal space.
But, as I mentioned above, I don’t think I would have met as many people--people who ultimately influenced me on this spiritual pilgrimage--had it not been for these various encounters.
In a certain sense, the book becomes more about them, these religious characters I meet, and I become merely a fly on the wall observing them.
On a related note, churches (and other houses of worship) across the world have become tourist attractions (e.g., Notre Dame, the Vatican, St. John the Divine, etc.), yet many people visit when services are not being held. How different do you think your trip would have been had you simply gone to church as a physical site rather than church as an event?
I don’t think the trip would’ve been the same at all. Going there for religious services--observing Christians in their natural habitat, so to speak--granted me access and insight I never would’ve been exposed to on a mere field trip.
Conversely, I went to a bunch of places that are not known for being houses of worship (baseball stadiums and Confederate memorials, just to name two) that were transformed into a church for the day.
Those instances, where faith and fandom met, made an even greater impression on me in some respect.
There’s a line between over-the-top and wholly spiritual that each congregation (and yourself) define differently between the different interactions. Is Jesus becoming gentrified in a transformation similar to many urban neighborhoods? Or is there still a line between the physical space and the spiritual space that we occupy?
There’s a famous Jewish joke that says “Ask two Jews, get three opinions.”
What I discovered during this year was that there are more similarities than differences between Judaism and Christianity. And one of those similarities is the plethora of beliefs and opinions within different denominations.
There were some churches I attended that really brought Jesus into the 21st century.
One, for example, was a church that looked more like a coffeehouse, eschewing pews for couches and hipster lounge chairs. But at the same time, I visited churches and even a monastery where modernity was nowhere to be seen.
Each, in its own unique way, makes up the vast and varied collection of Christianity in this country.
In describing one church, you write in the original AJL piece: “the menorah on the wall, an absurdly placed Judaic symbol, scares the bejeezus out of me.” Is the feeling similar to running into your boss while on vacation? You also begin the epilogue of the AJL piece with “It’s the following Sunday and I’ve woken up early in a sweat induced state of spiritual confusion. Is today the Sabbath? And whose Sabbath would that be?” Would you call that spiritual jet-lag?
I share many of those same sentiments in the book itself. I’m not sure if seeing a Jewish symbol in church is akin to seeing the boss on vacation.
Since my boss is Jewish, maybe it’s more like seeing my boss in church. I think it was more the shock of finding out that some Christians are a) very interested in Judaism, and b) even go so far as to bring Jewish symbols and even some holidays into their service.
After a year of going to church, I certainly felt some spiritual jet-lag. Besides actually being tired from going to such a myriad of services, I started to feel an odd sense of cognitive dissonance.
As I write in the book, I led the prayer services at synagogue one morning and just the day before I was attending a Catholic mass. I felt like a fraud. Here I was representing my congregation and, little did they know I had been jonesing with Jesus 24 hours earlier.
Well, I guess now that the book has been published, my secret’s out.
I find you make the point that travel is not about the destination as an inanimate object, but rather the experience you have once your there. Was this a deliberate point, or a serendipitous connection?
One of my favorite quotes is “Life is a journey, not a destination.” It’s a guiding principle that lights the way for most everything I do. So in that sense I’d say it was deliberate.
But, by the same token, I never could have planned all that I saw on my church-hopping adventure. The people I met, the places I went, the experiences I had--it was all serendipity played out right in from of me. It was, perhaps, divine intervention.
Olivia Giovetti has lived in and explored the better part of Europe on a bohemian budget. Freelance travel writing seemed like the next obvious step and her publishers include EuroCheapo, Paper Magazine, and Classic FM. A former New Yorker, she now lives in Los Angeles.
Link to the original article: http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2008/10/24/interview-benyamin-cohen-finds-jesus-becomes-a-better-jew/
Finding Judaism in the Bible Belt?
Jewish Book Fest author pens hilarious, compelling memoir
St. Louis Jewish Light
10.18.08
By Robert A. Cohn, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus
In his fascinating book, My Jesus Year, Benyamin Cohen, the Atlanta-born son of an Orthodox rabbi, who married a Protestant minister’s daughter who had converted to Judaism, describes his year-long plunge into an in-depth exploration of the beliefs and practices of Christianity.
Cohen shares his journey with remarkable candor and considerable humor, and makes it clear that he was not considering coverting to Christianity in his quest, but to “seek universal answers and common truths about the way people experience faith in America.” At the conclusion of his exploration of a sister faith, Cohen’s own commitment to Judaism had been sharpened and deepened.
Cohen will be a featured author-speaker at the upcoming 2008 St. Louis Jewish Book Festival, appearing at 1 p.m., Monday, Nov. 10, at the Jewish Community Center for what is billed as “a hilarious and inspirational exploration of identity, religion and interfaith relations.”
The description rings true for the reader, with whom Cohen shares not only his observations on such events as being plunged into the midst of a mosh-pit at a Christian rock festival; attending an Ultimate Christian Wrestling match and hanging out with two princes of the polygamous African Hebrew Israelite Community, but also a stream-of-consciousness retelling of his innermost thoughts and memories, including youthful crushes and the songs which provided the soundtrack for his formative years.
In title, format and structure, Cohen’s My Jesus Year invites comparison to another memoir, The Year of Living Biblically, by A. J. Jacobs, himself a previous featured author at the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival. Jacobs spent a year attempting to fulfill as many of the 613 mitzvot enumerated in the Torah as he could, including “stoning an alduterer,” which he accomplished by tossing some pebbles at a confessed philanderer in a public park.
Jacobs himself has praised Cohen’s book in a blurb on its dust jacket: “(My Jesus Year) is a witty memoir that should appeal to Christians and Jews alike (as well as Wiccans, Jains and Bahais, for that matter).”
Jacobs is right, of course. Too few Jews and Christians have any substantive knowledge of the similarities and differences between the two monotheistic religions and even fewer have any meaningful knowledge of Islam.
Too much of what passes for “interfaith dialogue” consists of mouthing safe platitudes about brotherhood and sisterhood, and people talking past each other when it comes to a true understanding of religious similarities and differences.
Cohen’s book, like a handful of others, provides considerable useful information about the tenets of both Judaism and Christianity, and the book has potential as a discussion-group focus for a true and respectful exploration of the two faiths.
Several decades ago, the late and esteemed Rabbi Ferdinand M. Isserman of Temple Israel delivered and later published a sermon called “The Jewish Jesus and the Christian Christ,” which to this day provides clear and concise explanations of the Jewish origins of Jesus of Nazareth, and how many of the beliefs of Jesus and his followers were directly adapted from the Hebrew Bible, which Christians call “The Old Testament.”
Similarly, in The Misunderstood Jew, Amy-Jill Levine, the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University, who was a visiting scholar at Traditional Congregation last year, published an in-depth exploration of the Jewish background of Jesus which has “prompted much-needed conversation and debate about how Christians and Jews should understand Jesus, the Gospels, the New Testament, and each other.”
Still other books, like Christ Killers: The Jews and The Passion From the Bible to the Big Screen, by Jeremy Cohen, a professor and three-time winner of the National Jewish Book Award, are designed to refute anti-Semitic canards against Judaism that result from anti-Jewish versions of the Passion Play and its depiction in the controversial Mel Gibson Film The Passion of the Christ.
Benyamin Cohen’s book, in contrast to Rabbi Isserman’s clear and concise pamphlet, which can still be obtained at the Temple Israel gift shop, free of charge, and to the scholarly works by Amy Jill-Levine, Jeremy Cohen and others, is much more “here and now” and frankly laugh-out-loud funny.
The author describes his various adventures, which include: his feelings being among a group of 15,000 spirit-filled African-Americans at a mega-church service, where he ends up seeing “my Jewish face 20 feet tall on Jesus’s JumboTron”; posing as a Roman Catholic in order to attend confession, where he receives valuable advice about his boring approach to prayer and feelings of guilt for hiding his true identity; and trying to “embrace the Christmas spirit” at a tree-lighting service at a Presbyterian church, and attending midnight mass at an Episcopal church.
Cohen also writes of attending the largest Jewish service on any U.S. military base, which is made up of mostly non-Jews. He attends a sunrise Easter service at Stone Mountain, a theme park which memorializes the Confederacy, and which was the birthplace of 20th century version of the Ku Klux Klan.
Cohen, who says he is descended from a Jewish family of “rabbinic rock stars,” manages to resist the seductive pull of the warm embrace provided at Christian gatherings which has caused some Jews to “go over” and become “Jews for Jesus” or to fully convert to Christianity.
He describes the theme underlying his yearlong quest is that “many paths lead to the Almighty,” and that “No one holds the copyright on a connection with God. Not the Catholics, not the Episcopalians, not the Baptists and not the Jews.”
He adds: “The gestalt of religious practice in America is simply this: between the Buddhists and Baptists, the Muslims and the Mormons, the pagans and Pentacostals, I found more similarities than differences.”
At the end of his adventure-filled year, Cohen says that his experiences taught him to appreciate his Jewish faith more deeply. In the end, Cohen says he finds his way to being “the Jew I always knew I could be, one who’s jazzed about his Judaism. I found a renewed connection to my faith, and I had Jesus to thank for it.”
As the reader shares Benyamin Cohen’s “Jesus Year,” one cannot help being infused with the good humor and enthusiasm which carried him along his winding path back to a deeper commitment to his own faith, based on his full exploration of another religion.
Link to the original article: http://www.stljewishlight.com/news/306650595410874.php
Dear Edgar Bronfman,An apology is in order. I am so sorry for kicking you out of the number one spot on Amazon’s list of best-selling Jewish books. After my interview with NPR last night, sales skyrocketed beyond my control. Who knew NPR had such a broad reach? Who knew that I would wake up this morning to find out that My Jesus Year, in its first day of release, would be #1?
I have since spoken to the powers that be and kindly asked people to stop buying the book, if for no other reason than to allow your book to creep back up to the top. And so, you’ll be happy to know, that as of this writing you are now back at #1. Hope you’re happy.
Watch the promo below for tonight’s episode of the Georgia Gazette. It’s probably the only time I’ll get teased between voter rights and POWs.
The Mobile-Press Register
10.4.08
by Kristen Campbell
Jesus, many Christians might tell you, saved their lives.
Benyamin Cohen, founder and editor of American Jewish Life and Jewsweek, credits the carpenter with helping to save his faith.
At first glance, you might think Cohen’s story would be markedly different from your own (unless, of course, you too are the son of an Orthodox rabbi who attached a 1,000-square-foot synagogue to your family’s home).
But his journey, documented in his soon-to-be-released tome, “My Jesus Year: A Rabbi’s Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of His Own Faith” (HarperOne, $24.95), articulates fairly universal spiritual struggles.
The misery-loves-company crowd may take solace simply in that.
But if you’re in the midst of the spiritual doldrums and looking for some hope -- and maybe even a solution -- Cohen might be just the man to help lead you out of the wilderness.
It won’t be easy. You’ll need to try to set aside any penchant for judging others. You’ll likely have to play the part of your own cruise director.
At the journey’s end, though, you just might end up with a better appreciation for your own faith, not to mention that of your neighbor.
At least, that’s how it seems to have worked for Cohen.
The trouble for Cohen began relatively early.
Growing up, religion was served “on a silver platter -- whether we wanted it or not.” Still, Cohen notes, as religious as his family was, he never actually understood Judaism’s fundamentals.
It bothered him.
So eventually, Cohen, who grew up across from a Methodist church that he was instructed not to visit, decided to spend a year immersed in Christianity.
He didn’t want to convert.
He wanted to understand Christianity’s appeal.
“And,” he writes, “as crazy as this sounds, I’m looking to Jesus to make me a better Jew.”
So, after receiving a rabbi’s blessing, he set out on his mission.
Along the way, he stopped in at churches of all kinds -- mega- and mainline, Catholic and Protestant. He met with members of the Black Hebrews, a group whose members claim they’re descended from the 10 lost tribes of Israel, and went out visiting with missionaries affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Often enough, he gleaned spiritual insight from his encounters.
Take the time he went to Turner Field for Faith Day.
“I’ve got to admit that at first I didn’t understand Christians’ desire to commingle faith with baseball,” he writes. “It seemed heretical at worst, trite at best.”
But Cohen found that by mixing the sacred with the mundane, “they were able to transform baseball into something holy.”
The idea resonated.
In Judaism, he notes, “we say blessings on just about everything we do,” and as result, transform run-of-the-mill tasks into holy acts.
While such a practice may sound inspiring to those who don’t say a paragraph-long blessing after going to the bathroom, Cohen writes that he recites so many daily blessings and prayers that he no longer looks at them as something special.
“It’s a real challenge to make every blessing count and be relevant,” he writes. But after witnessing Faith Day, he reflects: “Maybe I shouldn’t knock myself out for never concentrating on the after-bathroom blessing. Instead, maybe I should choose one time each day and make that my ‘Faith Day blessing.’ Try elevating the mundane just one time. It’s what Jesus would do, and I’m starting to see that.”
By the time the year ends, Cohen writes that his doubts and concerns have been allayed and that the embers of true religious enthusiasm have been ignited.
He is, to be clear, still a Jew.
But that faith is no longer simply the faith of his father. It’s his.
(Kristen Campbell is the religion editor for the
Press-Register. You may call her at 219-5680 or send her
e-mail at kcampbell@press-register.com. Read and respond to
the newspapers religion blog at
http://blog.al.com/forthelove/)
Link to the original article: http://www.al.com/religion/mobileregister/kcampbell.ssf?/base/news/1223111713226760.xml&coll=3&thispage=1
And, if for some crazy reason you don’t like the peaceful zen vibe of NPR, I’ll be on some other radio shows next week as well. And one more too: Georgia Public Broadcasting’s nightly news show on either Monday or Tuesday.
And, as if that wasn’t enough, I just found out that the Mobile Press-Register will be writing about ‘My Jesus Year’ in their paper tomorrow. Gotta love my Bible Belt brethren.
- Tune in this Sunday night from 8-9 PM, when I’ll be interviewed here by fellow Member of the Tribe Dave Gordon.
- I’ll be on NPR’s ‘Talk of the Nation’ sometime next week. More info to come.
- I’m converting to Catholicism ... just for a few minutes. I’ll be on Sirius XM Satellite Radio’s Catholic Channel on their cleverly-titled ‘Busted Halo’ show on Tuesday night at 8:15. It’s a perfectly normal way to spend the day before Yom Kippur.
I just got word that NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” will be doing a piece about My Jesus Year sometime next month. But for those of you who can’t wait that long, I’ll also be interviewed on my local NPR affiliate (Georgia Public Broadcasting) even sooner. They’re actually taping the interview tomorrow morning at their studios to air the week that the book comes out. I told my (apparently confused) friend Jimmy all this and he said he’s been listening to NPR all afternoon but -- and I quote -- “They’re not talking about you yet, and I don’t know why.”
On the way in, you may have noticed a bunch of advance endorsements for the book rotating off and on at this site’s homepage. For those of you who don’t have the patience or proper hand-eye coordination to watch the flash animation (even though we’ve generously provided a virtual bobblehead Jesus for you to bobble), here’s a rundown of all the kind authors and bigwigs who have offered advance praise for this book:
1. “Benyamin Cohen spends a year on a fascinating and thought-provoking inter-faith exploration. The resulting witty memoir should appeal to Christians and Jews alike (as well as Wiccans, Jains and Bahais, for that matter).” -- A.J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All and The Year of Living Biblically.
2. “Cohen’s witty and trenchant observations on identity and interfaith relations are like an early Christmukkah present.” -- Rob Kutner, author and writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
3. “Benyamin Cohen’s My Jesus Year is an insightful, moving, and hysterical journey about finding one’s faith -- no matter the faith. Ultimately, it helps us understand something we probably should have known all along: Jew, Christian, Muslim -- we’re all the same and we’re all looking for the same answers. The beauty of Cohen’s very funny memoir is that he never panders to his audience. While he’s an outsider looking in, he’s an outsider with the warmest of hearts and the purest of intentions. A fantastic and very human memoir.” -- Jonathan Kesselman, writer/director of The Hebrew Hammer.
4. “A witty, incisive, cross-cultural sojourn. A banquet of kasha and cornbread.” -- Mark Pinsky, religion reporter for the Orlando Sentinel and author of A Jew Among the Evangelicals, The Gospel According to the Simpsons, and The Gospel According to Disney.
5. “This is the unlikely story of an Orthodox Jewish journalist on a yearlong pilgrimage to Christian churches -- ostensibly to check out the competition and bring back secrets for reviving Jewish spirit. Cohen is a nervous-funny, neurotic-guilty, and unflinchingly introspective narrator, who tours us through varieties of American religious experience rarely witnessed by most Jews, from riding up in a skylift for Jesus at dawn, to entering a Catholic confession booth under false pretenses. As he takes us along, we see a deeper personal mission unfolding, he is opening his heart wide -- and rediscovering the Jewish soul.” -- Rodger Kamenetz, author of The History of Last Night’s Dream and The Jew in the Lotus.
6. “Only an extremely talented son of a rabbi married to a now-converted-to-Judaism daughter of a minister could have written this remarkable book -- deeply moving, inspiring, informative and, surprisingly enough, humorous as well. Benyamin Cohen takes us on a journey of enlightenment about other faiths that allows us to finally realize how and why he has found his own path that links him to the God of his ancestors and his people.” -- Rabbi Benjamin Blech, professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University and author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Judaism.
7. “Cohen’s book is a must-read and a breath of fresh air in this era of deep religious divisiveness. He shows how, when one approaches other faith traditions with respect and openness, it can be an inspirational, even transformational experience -- even if we disagree about the beliefs themselves. Cohen writes with depth, warmth, intelligence, and great wit. This very accessible book will appeal to Jew and Gentile alike and show us that our spiritual homes are, ultimately, where our hearts are.” -- Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein is the author of Gonzo Judaism, Lost Souls, and God at the Edge, and spiritual leader of The New Shul in Manhattan.
8. “Imagine a Kosher Don Quixote and you’ll appreciate Benyamin Cohen’s picaresque quest for spiritual and personal meaning among the far-flung outposts of Christendom. Like Quixote, Cohen is both idealist and naïf, armed with wicked irony and a willingness to skewer hypocrisy on both sides of the Judeo-Christian divide.” -- Vincent Coppola, author of Dragons of God: A Journey Through Far-Right America.
Matthue Roth posted a nice tidbit about the book in a blog post on the MyJewishLearning.com site in which he wrote:
”... Subtitled “A Rabbi’s Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of His Own Faith,” it’s actually closer to a Year of Living Biblically for the NASCAR crowd.”
Funny he should mention that. I actually wanted to include a section in the book about Cruisers for Christ Motorsport Ministries, but I only had 52 Sundays for my Jesus journey and there are only so many sports ministries I can justify going to instead of church -- and my chapter on Ultimate Christian Wrestling already fulfilled that quota. But maybe I’ll include something about it for the book’s sequel, the presumptively titled My Jesus Year: The Resurrection.
