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JEWISH BOOK ANNUAL
sion,
Goodman’s narratives assume a reade r familiar with terms
like
baal koreh
and
baruch haShem.
T he adolescent protagonist o f “Onionskin ,” less traditional
than R apopo rt’s Jud ith , similarly moves between the United
States and Israel to “pu t everything on the line fo r religion”
(35). Like Jud ith , Sharon complains no t tha t Juda ism dem ands
too much o f her, bu t tha t it withholds much o f its richness,
its answers to “big questions” and the “big moral concepts” (29).
Wanting to get beyond an approach “over-centered on the e th
nic stuff,” Sharon strives to go “beyond tha t.” Reversing the
movement o f Portnoy and his cohorts from the religious milieu
to the secular / intellectual world, Sharon dem ands o f h e r un i
versity professor, “I want to talk about God.”
Anne Roiphe’s novel
Lovingkindness
explores the tension be
tween the secular and the religious world th rough the conflict
between Annie John son and h er daugh ter , Andrea. An academ
ic, liberal feminist, Annie John son values the rational, humanist,
intellectual tradition in which she conducts he r life’s work: re
search on the life and writings o f New England spinsters.
Andrea, after almost a decade o f aimless wandering across the
Americas and th rough hollow relationships with men who aban
don her, en ters Rachel Yeshiva in Jerusa lem . A fter years o f
self-destructive behavior — including substance abuse, self-
inflicted burns, and th ree abortions by the time she reached
her early twenties — A nd rea is attracted by a world sa tura ted
with meaning, where “God respects me” (46).
Like Portnoy, Annie moves from the Juda ism o f h e r g rand
parents, and refuses to limit erotic o r marital relations to Jewish
partners . As a single mo ther, she teaches h e r d augh te r “tha t
we are Jewish, bu t I never made a fetish o f it” (14). While Annie
sees the Yeshiva world as patriarchal, fascistic, and demeaning ,
And rea finds in it a sense o f o rder , meaning and sanctity, a
feeling o f safety and community. With a feminist edge, Annie
articulates the critique tha t characterizes the generation o f Roth
and Malamud: tha t religious Juda ism constricts one’s ambitions
and aspirations, tha t its parochial practices should no t be taken
seriously, tha t its texts should play second fiddle to the works
o f the Western world now expanded canonically to include writ
ing by women. But as A nd rea sees it, the allure o f the secular
masks a spiritual and emotional emptiness.
One may read in the dynamics o f this m o the r-daugh ter con