Jew(ish)

What does it mean to be Jew(ish) in 2020? Caught between tradition and modernity, between a Jewish family and a non-Jewish son, Matt Greene ponders the big questions concerning identity, religion, family and Seinfeld. When his son was born to a non-Jewish mother, Matt began to consider the upbringing hed put behind himthe sense of not belonging, the forbidden foods, the holidays that felt more like punishments. There are more types of Jew than there are bagel fillings, and for every two there are three opinions. But if youre not a black-hatted frummer, if youre allergic to groups, if you observe but dont believe, or you dont observe at all, does that make you less Jewish? In this wide-ranging series of essays, at turns irreverent, insightful, urgent and iconoclastic, Matt considers what might loosely be termed the modern Jewish experience, and asks what it means to be anything in a world obsessed with the self and the other.