In ‘Shanda,’ a self-loathing Jew returns home

A funny thing happens to Neal Karlen on his way to rabbinical school. At the 11th hour, he turns a 180 and takes a secular path.

Years later, a successful journalist in his native Minnesota, he transmogrifies into a self-described "Jewish Uncle Tom." He's the token loudmouth "Hebe" at non-Jewish gatherings, where he gorges on pork and Bud while getting laughs by trashing Jewish traditions. King of the one-liners, he zeroes in on blue-eyed, blond women wearing big gold crucifixes and regales them with his self-deprecating Jewish shtick. Eventually, he marries one. They do not live happily ever after.

Subtitled "The Making and Breaking of a Self-Loathing Jew," the book is a searing self-analysis of a man who ran away from himself and crawled back. It's one of the most honest looks at that journey, without the hyper-religiosity that marks many such stories. And since it's by the co-author of Henny Youngman's autobiography, "Take My Life, Please," the book has a comic touch.

"I'm not from a drinking people," Karlen says at one gathering. "It's right there in the Old Testament, Genesis, Chapter Four in the book of Shmeckel. 'And God gave Moses the bong, and it was good. ..."

Offensive? That's Karlen's intention.

"How could I make such a spectacle of myself and talk such trash?" he writes. In fact, what he trashes most is himself. Trying to negotiate the chasm between the former "kosher-keeping and religious youth, studying Hebrew and ancient Aramaic harder than anyone I knew," and the kid who just wants to fit in by becoming the class cutup, Karlen falls on his face.

A funny thing happens to Karlen at age 40. On a plane from Los Angeles to Minneapolis, he sits down next to Manis Friedman, a well-known Chassidic rabbi and lecturer, and the author of "Doesn't Anyone Blush Anymore?" When probed by the rabbi, Karlen answers, "I love Judaism ... it's Jews I can't stand."

Expecting his self-described "rim shot" to shock the rabbi, Karlen is astounded when Friedman opens an ongoing dialogue, with periodic tutorials and eventually, family dinners.

"Do the Hasidim believe in reincarnation?" Karlen asks the rabbi.

Friedman responds: "I believe you can be reincarnated in your own lifetime."

That reincarnation is the focus of "Shanda," as Karlen comes to realize that for all his jokes, his endless shtick, he's crying for a connection.

"I want to come in from the cold, not even necessarily to Judaism but to life," he tells Friedman, during his first meeting at the rabbi's house. "I want to come out of the dark. I don't like myself anymore. ... I want to be a mensch."

It wasn't the Judaism of Torah and Talmud that had turned off Karlen to the heritage of their forebears. It was the materialism, the women with big diamonds, the money men, the elaborate temples with fancy cars in the parking lots, the folks in gaudy suburbs who lack "any sense of Yiddishkeit," but often are prominent in Jewish community circles. And it was the hypocrisy.

By dialoguing with Friedman, a rabbi who has never identified with the American mainstream, Karlen confronts the big issues. Through the rabbi's entertaining Chassidic stories and warm hospitality, he discovers the joy inherent in Judaism.

Certainly, many books have been written by Jews who have turned away from secularism, discarding their conventional attire for tzitzit and kippot, moving to urban ghettos, and often alienating their less religious family members. While Karlen reaffirms his faith and his place in the Jewish community, his path is not that of the fervently religious. Instead he comes home to Judaism his way, as a student, as a teacher and as a repentant son.




"Shanda: The Making and Breaking of a Self-Loathing Jew" by Neal Karlen, (208 pages, Touchstone, $23).