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Lovesong: Becoming a Jew
The author chronicles his earliest encounters with faith in the figure of his father, a Black Methodist minister, his earliest recollections of the lure of Judaism, the South before the Civil Rights movement, and his conversion to Judaism
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
18 people are currently reading
334 people want to read
About the author
Julius Lester
119 books184 followersJulius Lester was an American writer of books for children and adults. He was an academic who taught for 32 years (1971–2003) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He was also a photographer, as well as a musician who recorded two albums of folk music and original songs.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
December 28, 2009
this book is a magnificent memoire of an amazing life.
how lucky as a jewish people we have been to have been blessed with a Julius Lester.
how lucky as a jewish people we have been to have been blessed with a Julius Lester.
February 26, 2018
Right off the bat, let me say that his lack of feminism ticked me off. And he is very self-involved in that way.
Having said that, I was moved by his devotion to the soul of Judaism and by the way he truly loves each and every part of it. I was impressed, too, by his willingness to reveal himself and all his imperfections. That he is a writer and that's what writers do, made it no less brave.
Having said that, I was moved by his devotion to the soul of Judaism and by the way he truly loves each and every part of it. I was impressed, too, by his willingness to reveal himself and all his imperfections. That he is a writer and that's what writers do, made it no less brave.
March 6, 2008
Too many metaphors, too little time. And, what he has to say could be substantial, its just hard to get past the superfluous language that flowed like honey from the ravines of the Promised Land. Get my drift? Over the top!
January 18, 2016
What a wonderful book. I thought I had read it before. I certainly owned it. This is the story of a professor at UMass Amherst in the African American Studies department who converted to Judaism. I had heard him speak at Tufts--probably when the book first came out 30 years ago. He was a powerful speaker--and an even more powerful writer. His prose is lyrical. He raises really important questions about spirituality and I find I am wrestling with today. And that is the rub--things he talks about from the 60s and 70s are still current today. Too current. Have we made any progress as a society? I am not entirely sure. But I love what he eventually calls himself, rising above all of the politics. Is he an anti-semite? Is he a self-hating black? Is he (eventually) just Jewish. No he is love song to the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, a praise song to the G-d of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. How very appropriate for wrapping up my celebration of Martin Luther King jr Weekend and the start of Shabbat Shirah, the Sabbath of Song!
June 16, 2023
I am so torn on this book because his story about finding Judaism is beautiful but there are some parts which I have a hard time understanding why they needed to be included. Especially his thoughts on his son’s underwear. Just weird going from something like his spiritual journey to…that.
August 11, 2020
💬 ”But Jews are different. If I were converting to Catholicism or Buddhism, I would not be afraid to tell anyone. But an otherness clings to Jews like barnacles. My wife fears that I am becoming unfamiliar to her. I tell her that I am only becoming wholly myself. I know what the problem is, though. The word “convert” makes it sound as if I am dollars about to be turned into francs. That is not so. I am merely receiving who I have always been.”
📚 Lovesong
by Julius Lester
📚 Bookish Thoughts 💭
Thought Provoking • Identity Affirming • Conversation Starter
Abridged Synopsis (via @Goodreads): One man’s uncompromising venture through religion and how he found his true faith in spite of it all.
Julius Lester was born the son of a black Methodist minister in the south. His book Lovesong is a beautifully written account of his spiritual journey away from the conventions of his Southern heritage and Methodist upbringing, culminating in his personal self-discovery through a conversion to Judaism.
❤️ I made so many highlights and notes on this ebook, I am itching to buy a physical copy to continue the annotation party. I really connected with the passages on family, identity, and the conflicts and joint struggles between the Black and Jewish communities. I also related with the internal battle of finding yourself after growing up in the Bible Belt. While the title told me this book would address a spiritual journey, it did not convey that this book would call out racism within the white Jewish community and anti-Semitism in the Black community before, during, and after the Civil Rights movement. The author was very controversial even while he struggled with identity, the world, and his place within. This not only made him human, but very relatable.
💔 There are a few parts that read as contradictions of previous chapters and while I understand that the author is attempting to illustrate growth in his ideology, I didn't feel they were expressed as thoroughly. I couldn’t find many other faults with this book, but of course, I’m biased!
✨ Recommendations: Everyone #readoutsideyourbubble
❔Have you read anything from this author? I have not, although he talks about his other books, and it has sparked my curiosity.
💋 xoxo,
Kat
📚 Lovesong
by Julius Lester
📚 Bookish Thoughts 💭
Thought Provoking • Identity Affirming • Conversation Starter
Abridged Synopsis (via @Goodreads): One man’s uncompromising venture through religion and how he found his true faith in spite of it all.
Julius Lester was born the son of a black Methodist minister in the south. His book Lovesong is a beautifully written account of his spiritual journey away from the conventions of his Southern heritage and Methodist upbringing, culminating in his personal self-discovery through a conversion to Judaism.
❤️ I made so many highlights and notes on this ebook, I am itching to buy a physical copy to continue the annotation party. I really connected with the passages on family, identity, and the conflicts and joint struggles between the Black and Jewish communities. I also related with the internal battle of finding yourself after growing up in the Bible Belt. While the title told me this book would address a spiritual journey, it did not convey that this book would call out racism within the white Jewish community and anti-Semitism in the Black community before, during, and after the Civil Rights movement. The author was very controversial even while he struggled with identity, the world, and his place within. This not only made him human, but very relatable.
💔 There are a few parts that read as contradictions of previous chapters and while I understand that the author is attempting to illustrate growth in his ideology, I didn't feel they were expressed as thoroughly. I couldn’t find many other faults with this book, but of course, I’m biased!
✨ Recommendations: Everyone #readoutsideyourbubble
❔Have you read anything from this author? I have not, although he talks about his other books, and it has sparked my curiosity.
💋 xoxo,
Kat
June 23, 2020
Conversion memoirs aren't really my thing, but I had this one specifically recommended to me, and it was an interesting read. Lester, the son of a Black Methodist minister who grew up in Kansas City and Nashville, learned he had a Jewish ancestor as a child and ultimately converted in his 40s. He struggles with his desire to be Jewish, his sense of himself as a Black man, and his relationship to God and religion. Lester was a gifted writer who published in multiple genres, which puts this above the usual tier of religious memoir.
December 21, 2022
This book really resonated with me! Highly recommend if you are converting to Judaism. Lester’s perspective on a multitude of things it’s very unique. There are aspects of his story however, that I think will resonate with most people converting to Judaism.
January 17, 2023
Uneven beginning, but about halfway through, it improved. Read it for the book club at my synagogue. I am Black and Jewish, and came of age about ten years after the author...my sister was about his age. Lots of connections and lots of personal interest for me in this book.
August 17, 2025
Book Review
Lovesong
1/5 stars
"Egomania and a string of overwrought similes"
*******
(248 pages with glossary)
A friend recommended this book to me. (I've had it on my wish list for several years at one point, but never purchased it; I should have followed my first mind and left it unpurchased.)
I can say that it isn't about much of anything; black people convert to Judaism all the time (like the current reviewer), and they all have different reasons - - of course it will never be the same story twice.
Given that I have access to my own story, and know my own reasons, I probably should have skipped this one - - along with about a trillion other books that I have not read.
It seems that he spends many years searching for something throughout his life (his conversion was finished at 43) and doing a lot of things with a lot of gusto, but he didn't seem to be too good at any of them.
-As a member of the Black Power movement.
-Then a radio DJ.
-Then through several marriages.
-And some number of affairs during the marriages.
-There was also a trip to the monastery at one point.
-He also put out a couple of unfocused albums.
-He published tons of books, none of which are any longer in print. (If this book was his peak as a writer, then he really should have tried punching a clock somewhere.)
I can imagine that he chose Judaism, because he'd probably run out of other things to try by that point.
*******
What the hell is this book, anyway?
Is it a spiritual journal?
Is it an autobiography?
Is it a travel memoir?
Is it (as it most likely seems) something that he stapled together from all of his journals? (Sidebar: It is published on a no-name label that started in 1988 and went bankrupt by 2009.)
Other Random Thoughts:
1. This guy is the most annoying writer that I think I've ever read.
It is just one overwrought simile after another, and it gets annoying after about three pages.
2. *Even back in 1969*, there is the familiar cast of characters. A bunch of stupid, low IQ black people with a lot of their ignorant, cognitively deficient ideas:
a. Holocaust denial.
b. Imagining that "black people wear the original Hebrews."
c. Any and everything is white supremacy.
(This is all in poem written by a 15-year-old. Thea Behran. [p.51])
d. Rehearsed victimhood. (And I owe this phrase to Coleman Hughes.)
3. One thing on which we are in agreement is that no one took Sammy Davis Jr seriously as a Jew (p.37).
4. It is a cliche at this point that you have black guys that are spokesman for black people/ use that as a reason to put themselves in front of any camera, but at the very first people to jump into bed with white women. ALL THREE of Julius Lester's wives were white.
5. Some of the things that this guy talks about: (p.154) "My father died and I feel so abandoned and so terribly alone. How could he do that to me?" Lester's father was 85 years old at that point. Hadn't Lester gotten it into his head that his father was going to die?
6. His practice just doesn't make any sense.
a. He converts, but nobody else in the house does.
b. Then he converts not living anywhere near synagogue, but worried about breaking Shabbat to drive someplace where there is one?
c. Havdalah is not from when you see three stars in the sky, but from a pre-calculated time.
d. (p. 163) Rabbi lander, a Reform rabbi, is "very traditional," but several pages later says that that same Rabbi is "disappointed that I decided not to be circumcised." (WTF? Lester was circumcised later, but still.)
e. (p.239) Last December was the first time there was not a Christmas tree in the house. (This was three or four years after "conversion." )
7. (p.234) Farrakhan has been ranting about Jews for DECADES. (Since 1985, in this book.) And Nation of Islam had reached its peak 10 years before the events of this book, and has been declining ever since.
Verdict: NOT recommended.
Lovesong
1/5 stars
"Egomania and a string of overwrought similes"
*******
(248 pages with glossary)
A friend recommended this book to me. (I've had it on my wish list for several years at one point, but never purchased it; I should have followed my first mind and left it unpurchased.)
I can say that it isn't about much of anything; black people convert to Judaism all the time (like the current reviewer), and they all have different reasons - - of course it will never be the same story twice.
Given that I have access to my own story, and know my own reasons, I probably should have skipped this one - - along with about a trillion other books that I have not read.
It seems that he spends many years searching for something throughout his life (his conversion was finished at 43) and doing a lot of things with a lot of gusto, but he didn't seem to be too good at any of them.
-As a member of the Black Power movement.
-Then a radio DJ.
-Then through several marriages.
-And some number of affairs during the marriages.
-There was also a trip to the monastery at one point.
-He also put out a couple of unfocused albums.
-He published tons of books, none of which are any longer in print. (If this book was his peak as a writer, then he really should have tried punching a clock somewhere.)
I can imagine that he chose Judaism, because he'd probably run out of other things to try by that point.
*******
What the hell is this book, anyway?
Is it a spiritual journal?
Is it an autobiography?
Is it a travel memoir?
Is it (as it most likely seems) something that he stapled together from all of his journals? (Sidebar: It is published on a no-name label that started in 1988 and went bankrupt by 2009.)
Other Random Thoughts:
1. This guy is the most annoying writer that I think I've ever read.
It is just one overwrought simile after another, and it gets annoying after about three pages.
2. *Even back in 1969*, there is the familiar cast of characters. A bunch of stupid, low IQ black people with a lot of their ignorant, cognitively deficient ideas:
a. Holocaust denial.
b. Imagining that "black people wear the original Hebrews."
c. Any and everything is white supremacy.
(This is all in poem written by a 15-year-old. Thea Behran. [p.51])
d. Rehearsed victimhood. (And I owe this phrase to Coleman Hughes.)
3. One thing on which we are in agreement is that no one took Sammy Davis Jr seriously as a Jew (p.37).
4. It is a cliche at this point that you have black guys that are spokesman for black people/ use that as a reason to put themselves in front of any camera, but at the very first people to jump into bed with white women. ALL THREE of Julius Lester's wives were white.
5. Some of the things that this guy talks about: (p.154) "My father died and I feel so abandoned and so terribly alone. How could he do that to me?" Lester's father was 85 years old at that point. Hadn't Lester gotten it into his head that his father was going to die?
6. His practice just doesn't make any sense.
a. He converts, but nobody else in the house does.
b. Then he converts not living anywhere near synagogue, but worried about breaking Shabbat to drive someplace where there is one?
c. Havdalah is not from when you see three stars in the sky, but from a pre-calculated time.
d. (p. 163) Rabbi lander, a Reform rabbi, is "very traditional," but several pages later says that that same Rabbi is "disappointed that I decided not to be circumcised." (WTF? Lester was circumcised later, but still.)
e. (p.239) Last December was the first time there was not a Christmas tree in the house. (This was three or four years after "conversion." )
7. (p.234) Farrakhan has been ranting about Jews for DECADES. (Since 1985, in this book.) And Nation of Islam had reached its peak 10 years before the events of this book, and has been declining ever since.
Verdict: NOT recommended.
July 26, 2024
A FAMOUS BLACK INTELLECTUAL OF THE 1970s CONVERTS TO JUDAISM
Julius Lester (born 1939) began teaching in the Afro-American Studies department of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1971, and wrote books such as 'Look Out, Whitey! Black Power's Gon' Get Your Mama!; But in 1982, he converted to Judaism. He served as a cantor for Congregation B'nai Israel in Massachusetts, and then became lay leader of Beth El Synagogue in Vermont, until resigning in 2006. He has also written many children's books.
He wrote in this 1988 book that Jewish people "had to wear yellow Stars of David on their clothes to be identified... My yellow star is my skin. I am alive, however, and Anne Frank is not." (Pg. 33) He notes, "I am merely one in the generations of black intellectuals who were required to sacrifice their childhoods, personal dreams and desires because our task was to prepare the way. No other alternative existed." (Pg. 112)
He recalls about his pre-conversion life, "Every Sunday morning the university radio station plays Jewish music for two hours. I don't know why but I listen every week... there is something in Jewish music that makes me feel loved. I listen and that loneliness lying within me ... is destroyed and stars shine with a white heat and I become infinity." (Pg. 117) While beginning the conversion process, he wonders, "As much as I love Judaism... I know already that unless I make peace with the concept of chosenness, my conversion will be stillborn... How do you belong to the Chosen People without thinking yourself better than everybody else?" (Pg. 166)
Later, he laments, "My religious practice is not what I would like it to be... I want to keep kosher but I can't impose that discipline on my family. I want to observe the Sabbath strictly, but my son has hockey games on Friday nights and I must choose between him and driving on the Sabbath... I am sorry my family is outside my joy." (Pg. 203)
This is one of the most fascinating religious memoirs I have read (and I've read quite a few); it deserves a wide readership.
Julius Lester (born 1939) began teaching in the Afro-American Studies department of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1971, and wrote books such as 'Look Out, Whitey! Black Power's Gon' Get Your Mama!; But in 1982, he converted to Judaism. He served as a cantor for Congregation B'nai Israel in Massachusetts, and then became lay leader of Beth El Synagogue in Vermont, until resigning in 2006. He has also written many children's books.
He wrote in this 1988 book that Jewish people "had to wear yellow Stars of David on their clothes to be identified... My yellow star is my skin. I am alive, however, and Anne Frank is not." (Pg. 33) He notes, "I am merely one in the generations of black intellectuals who were required to sacrifice their childhoods, personal dreams and desires because our task was to prepare the way. No other alternative existed." (Pg. 112)
He recalls about his pre-conversion life, "Every Sunday morning the university radio station plays Jewish music for two hours. I don't know why but I listen every week... there is something in Jewish music that makes me feel loved. I listen and that loneliness lying within me ... is destroyed and stars shine with a white heat and I become infinity." (Pg. 117) While beginning the conversion process, he wonders, "As much as I love Judaism... I know already that unless I make peace with the concept of chosenness, my conversion will be stillborn... How do you belong to the Chosen People without thinking yourself better than everybody else?" (Pg. 166)
Later, he laments, "My religious practice is not what I would like it to be... I want to keep kosher but I can't impose that discipline on my family. I want to observe the Sabbath strictly, but my son has hockey games on Friday nights and I must choose between him and driving on the Sabbath... I am sorry my family is outside my joy." (Pg. 203)
This is one of the most fascinating religious memoirs I have read (and I've read quite a few); it deserves a wide readership.
April 5, 2023
Wow. A profound autobiographical work. It is nice to hear another Jew-By-Choice and their journey in embracing Judaism. Lester opens the door to his personal life so completely that it draws the reader in. From beginning to end it is so interesting to see how his experience and mindset changes from curiosity to devotion over years.
February 17, 2020
Overlapping memoirs of the civil rights movement and conversion to Judaism of a black man born & raised in the South. Full of things to ponder.
April 6, 2009
Purple prose takes away from what could be a unique conversion story. The part I was most interested in - Lester's decision to convert, and the conversion process, only covered approximately a scant third of the book. Instead, Lester dedicated far too many pages on how he always felt like an outsider, how his estrangement from the Black community affected his world view, and and on life experiences that, while may have greatly informed his ultimate decision to convert, didn't advance the narrative at all.
I'm hoping to discover other narratives by African American converts, because Lester's work left me with more questions than answers.
I'm hoping to discover other narratives by African American converts, because Lester's work left me with more questions than answers.
November 20, 2016
Outstanding memoir detailing Lester's transformation from the child of an African American reverend to a Civil Rights pioneer to a professor and Jew. I love the style, which shows what he's thinking and feeling at each stage along the way...this generates more suspense about his choices and highlights the internal contradictions and struggles within each human being. While his love for Judaism is clear, touching, and profound, I also really appreciated his love of humanity as a whole and - still more - his reflections on fatherhood. Touching, poignant, surprising, funny, and poetic, the book really made me want to meet Professor Lester.
September 4, 2015
Some parts of this book upset me. There are some that, as a white Jew, it's not my place to comment on. But this book screamed out to so many of my own experiences I can't articulate- and others I will never truly know- that I'm going to recommend it to everyone I know who's Jewish. And maybe everyone who's not, too.
November 11, 2012
Julius Lester, is at a different level of reasoning, is not politics nor religion he is talking about, is about doing the right thing and evolving his thinking without an agenda. He has honesty, honesty to self. I enjoyed his descriptions, they have feeling. Great book.
December 23, 2012
I wrote this review at Amazon about
this book.
I gave it 5 stars then for being a good spiritual autobiography.
this book.
I gave it 5 stars then for being a good spiritual autobiography.
November 10, 2021
What a beautiful story. I adored the sophisticated autobiographical writing style, his clever combination of words created phrases which stuck in my head. And the soul-searching he is able to expresses on the pages allows the reader to better understand the struggles of his spiritual journey.
March 8, 2010
Hands down, the best conversion memoir I've ever read. Lester's experience of going from African-American to Jew to African-American Jew is incredibly engrossing and poetic.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews