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Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde: A True Story
The ultimate fish-out-of-water tale . . .
A child who never quite fit in, Rebecca Dana worshipped at the altar of Truman Capote and Nora Ephron, dreaming of one day ditching Pittsburgh and moving to New York, her Jerusalem. After graduating from college, she made her way to the city to begin her destiny. For a time, life turned out exactly as she’d planned: glamorous parties; beautiful people; the perfect job, apartment, and man. But when it all came crashing down, she found herself catapulted into another world. She moves into Brooklyn’s enormous Lubavitch community, and lives with Cosmo, a thirty-year-old Russian rabbi who practices jujitsu on the side.
While Cosmo, disenchanted with Orthodoxy, flirts with leaving the community, Rebecca faces the fact that her religion—the books, magazines, TV shows, and movies that made New York seem like salvation—has also failed her. As she shuttles between the world of religious extremism and the world of secular excess, Rebecca goes on a search for meaning.
Trenchantly observant, entertaining as hell, a mix of Shalom Auslander and The Odd Couple, Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde is a thought-provoking coming-of-age story for the twenty-first century.
A child who never quite fit in, Rebecca Dana worshipped at the altar of Truman Capote and Nora Ephron, dreaming of one day ditching Pittsburgh and moving to New York, her Jerusalem. After graduating from college, she made her way to the city to begin her destiny. For a time, life turned out exactly as she’d planned: glamorous parties; beautiful people; the perfect job, apartment, and man. But when it all came crashing down, she found herself catapulted into another world. She moves into Brooklyn’s enormous Lubavitch community, and lives with Cosmo, a thirty-year-old Russian rabbi who practices jujitsu on the side.
While Cosmo, disenchanted with Orthodoxy, flirts with leaving the community, Rebecca faces the fact that her religion—the books, magazines, TV shows, and movies that made New York seem like salvation—has also failed her. As she shuttles between the world of religious extremism and the world of secular excess, Rebecca goes on a search for meaning.
Trenchantly observant, entertaining as hell, a mix of Shalom Auslander and The Odd Couple, Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde is a thought-provoking coming-of-age story for the twenty-first century.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 24, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 132 reviews
January 21, 2013
Whenever I read a memoir by a writer who is unknown to me (and not a freshly rehabilitated drug addict -- strangers I will blindly read), it always inspires a variation of the same fan fiction about how this book came to be.
In the case of Rebecca Dana’s “Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde” it goes like this:
Scene: Modern-day dinner party.
Characters: Would-be memoirist standing at a table covered in top shelf booze surrounded by a gaggle of tipsy friends and acquaintances on tippier shoes.
Writer: So there I was in my ex-apartment clearing out my stuff before the asshole returned when SHE (points dramatically with thumb to best bud) shows me a hair clip that was on the nightstand that doesn’t belong to me, obvi (points with pointer finger to tightly cropped bleached-blonde hair).
Acquaintance: Oh no he didn’t.
Writer: (Nodding slowly) So I take the stuffed Eeyore he got me when I was in the hospital and spike it like a football. Then I stab it over and over again with the heel of my Louboutins. All the while it’s like croaking the song “Blue Christmas.”
(Everyone erupts with laughter)
Acquaintance: That. Is. Hilar.
Best Bud: True story. I was there. (Performs a dying robot dance move to the song “Blue Christmas”)
(More laughter)
Second best bud: Only Rebecca. I keep telling her she’s HAS to write a book. She’s got so many stories!
Writer: (Smiles and nods) I really should. No one would believe it wasn’t fiction.
Best Bud: Oh! Oh! Tell them about the time you moved to Crown Heights and lived with the rabbi!
End Scene.
Dana’s story covers a year in her life when she went from the blissfully unaware half of doomed, albeit perfect-seeming couple, into hiding in the Brooklyn neighborhood with a large population of Hasidic Jews -- including, kind of, her roommate Cosmo, a Jewish scholar who is quickly losing his religion.
While in Crown Heights, the pop culture/fashion writer for Daily Beast by day becomes an embedded journalist by night, examining the religion she’s been a bit half-assed about in the past. Along the way are little mini-episodes about life at her Skittles-colored office, drugs with strangers at the Boom Boom Room, fashion week and running with Tina Brown’s crew (and sharing a table with Candace Bushnell).
This is a strange, strange little book. It starts out like well-written chick lit: gushy love that ends as just another public breakup on a Manhattan street. When she moves to Crown Heights it turns to first-person journalism as she describes the difference between her work and social life and Shabbat dinners with orthodox neighbors. As it goes on, it becomes a list of sexy events attended and who was there and who Tweeted what about a 13-year-old fashionista. There are trips to Los Angeles and New Orleans. It’s all billed as “Let me tell you about the whacky roommate I had” -- and he does truly have a unique history and some quality one liners -- but Cosmo doesn’t have nearly the screen time the title suggests.
I wanted more smart, well-written Dana, earning easy access into people’s lives and writing about an unfamiliar culture and making a joke by quoting Philip Larkin. She’s a great magazine-style reporter with an eye for detail and context. But so much of this is Carrie Bradshaw Dana: Partying with models and referring to Tina Brown as Tina. The latter feels like a shiny lure for people who might be put off if forced to read about self-discovery among the deeply religious instead of self-discovery from inside a rack of this season’s Marc Jacobs. And the name dropping comes across as a sort of on-going plea for street cred when her writing really speaks for itself.
I’m dissing this harder than I mean to. “Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde” is a good book, it just feels a little disjointed. I kept wondering why I was reading about her life and wishing I was reading something she had written about someone else’s life.
Also: I wonder when women will stop considering Carrie Bradshaw a spirit animal.
In the case of Rebecca Dana’s “Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde” it goes like this:
Scene: Modern-day dinner party.
Characters: Would-be memoirist standing at a table covered in top shelf booze surrounded by a gaggle of tipsy friends and acquaintances on tippier shoes.
Writer: So there I was in my ex-apartment clearing out my stuff before the asshole returned when SHE (points dramatically with thumb to best bud) shows me a hair clip that was on the nightstand that doesn’t belong to me, obvi (points with pointer finger to tightly cropped bleached-blonde hair).
Acquaintance: Oh no he didn’t.
Writer: (Nodding slowly) So I take the stuffed Eeyore he got me when I was in the hospital and spike it like a football. Then I stab it over and over again with the heel of my Louboutins. All the while it’s like croaking the song “Blue Christmas.”
(Everyone erupts with laughter)
Acquaintance: That. Is. Hilar.
Best Bud: True story. I was there. (Performs a dying robot dance move to the song “Blue Christmas”)
(More laughter)
Second best bud: Only Rebecca. I keep telling her she’s HAS to write a book. She’s got so many stories!
Writer: (Smiles and nods) I really should. No one would believe it wasn’t fiction.
Best Bud: Oh! Oh! Tell them about the time you moved to Crown Heights and lived with the rabbi!
End Scene.
Dana’s story covers a year in her life when she went from the blissfully unaware half of doomed, albeit perfect-seeming couple, into hiding in the Brooklyn neighborhood with a large population of Hasidic Jews -- including, kind of, her roommate Cosmo, a Jewish scholar who is quickly losing his religion.
While in Crown Heights, the pop culture/fashion writer for Daily Beast by day becomes an embedded journalist by night, examining the religion she’s been a bit half-assed about in the past. Along the way are little mini-episodes about life at her Skittles-colored office, drugs with strangers at the Boom Boom Room, fashion week and running with Tina Brown’s crew (and sharing a table with Candace Bushnell).
This is a strange, strange little book. It starts out like well-written chick lit: gushy love that ends as just another public breakup on a Manhattan street. When she moves to Crown Heights it turns to first-person journalism as she describes the difference between her work and social life and Shabbat dinners with orthodox neighbors. As it goes on, it becomes a list of sexy events attended and who was there and who Tweeted what about a 13-year-old fashionista. There are trips to Los Angeles and New Orleans. It’s all billed as “Let me tell you about the whacky roommate I had” -- and he does truly have a unique history and some quality one liners -- but Cosmo doesn’t have nearly the screen time the title suggests.
I wanted more smart, well-written Dana, earning easy access into people’s lives and writing about an unfamiliar culture and making a joke by quoting Philip Larkin. She’s a great magazine-style reporter with an eye for detail and context. But so much of this is Carrie Bradshaw Dana: Partying with models and referring to Tina Brown as Tina. The latter feels like a shiny lure for people who might be put off if forced to read about self-discovery among the deeply religious instead of self-discovery from inside a rack of this season’s Marc Jacobs. And the name dropping comes across as a sort of on-going plea for street cred when her writing really speaks for itself.
I’m dissing this harder than I mean to. “Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde” is a good book, it just feels a little disjointed. I kept wondering why I was reading about her life and wishing I was reading something she had written about someone else’s life.
Also: I wonder when women will stop considering Carrie Bradshaw a spirit animal.
April 17, 2013
This memoir of an occasionally hard-partying, fashion-obsessed Manhattan woman who relocates to the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn after a break-up to become the platonic roommate of a jujtisu-studying Hasidic Russian rabbi named Cosmo seems like a good premise, right? What’s not to like?
For some reason, I could not get through this book. I have a new policy about putting books aside if I’m not feeling them—something I didn’t do for a very, very long time. Despite that policy, I stuck this one out. I kept telling myself that I must be missing something. It was named an Amazon best book of the month in January, it’s been reviewed by several dozen major publications, I’ve seen it on several “must read” lists and yet…I really didn’t care for it.
As a story of self-discovery and a narrative about the intersection of the secular and the very religious in modern society, it is mildly successful. All the parts that make for a good book are there. Dana is a good, technical writer. She was living an interesting life. Where did this book go wrong? Why did every page feel interminable and why did I wake up each morning with no recollection of anything I read the night before? It’s an utterly forgettable book.
It’s clear that Dana was constructing a hybrid of many recently popular types of books. There is an Eat, Pray, Love-ish sense of narcissism, a Wild bit of introspection, and of course, a healthy dose of Sex and the City-ish stereotypes just to round everything out. It’s ironic that without Cosmo’s presence she’d have little to no material at all (let alone a catchy title), but he doesn’t appear often in the book. When he does, he feels one-dimensional. His jujitsu-studying is mentioned off-hand. He’s as flat as a pancake, but then again, so is Dana. I didn’t care much about any of them and I read the last page not caring that it was ending. It’s not a bad book. It’s not a great book. It’s not even a good book or an okay book or a so-so book. I’m totally indifferent and I think that’s probably worse than hating it.
For some reason, I could not get through this book. I have a new policy about putting books aside if I’m not feeling them—something I didn’t do for a very, very long time. Despite that policy, I stuck this one out. I kept telling myself that I must be missing something. It was named an Amazon best book of the month in January, it’s been reviewed by several dozen major publications, I’ve seen it on several “must read” lists and yet…I really didn’t care for it.
As a story of self-discovery and a narrative about the intersection of the secular and the very religious in modern society, it is mildly successful. All the parts that make for a good book are there. Dana is a good, technical writer. She was living an interesting life. Where did this book go wrong? Why did every page feel interminable and why did I wake up each morning with no recollection of anything I read the night before? It’s an utterly forgettable book.
It’s clear that Dana was constructing a hybrid of many recently popular types of books. There is an Eat, Pray, Love-ish sense of narcissism, a Wild bit of introspection, and of course, a healthy dose of Sex and the City-ish stereotypes just to round everything out. It’s ironic that without Cosmo’s presence she’d have little to no material at all (let alone a catchy title), but he doesn’t appear often in the book. When he does, he feels one-dimensional. His jujitsu-studying is mentioned off-hand. He’s as flat as a pancake, but then again, so is Dana. I didn’t care much about any of them and I read the last page not caring that it was ending. It’s not a bad book. It’s not a great book. It’s not even a good book or an okay book or a so-so book. I’m totally indifferent and I think that’s probably worse than hating it.
February 2, 2013
I was expecting something funnier, with a more detailed relationship between the rabbi & the blonde.
It is really more about the author's journey after a breakup, thinking about life, future, how to cope & what to do with her life. I wanted more of the relationship with Cosmo, and felt short-changed a little.
It is really more about the author's journey after a breakup, thinking about life, future, how to cope & what to do with her life. I wanted more of the relationship with Cosmo, and felt short-changed a little.
January 4, 2014
Rebecca Dana is a native of Pittsburgh who always wanted to live in Manhattan. After a break up with her long time boyfriend, she ended up living in a rodent infested walk up in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. Her roommate is a young rabbi with many religious friends in the neighborhood. It may have been a setback in her life, but I was tickled to hear about how the Lubavitchers , a sect of ultra conservative Jews, live their everyday lives. Young women with wigs and hordes of young children cooking elaborate meals for the sabbath. It makes a nice contrast to Dana's hipster life, attending fashion week events in Manhattan. Above all, she is an engaging writer who has a knack for turning ordinary events into an absorbing dialogue.
February 8, 2013
Bare in mind that the reviewer is a 60 year plus male who is reading about many things that are not high on his list of interests like New York City, fashion week and Lubavitch Judaism and I still went with four stars. So that should indicate the book is very well written and captured my audience even though its subject was far outside the middle America where I live. Ms. Dana writes realistically and humorously about the ups and downs in her life in the big city. She was a girl in Pittsburgh that always wanted the Sex in the City life. She found some of that but what makes the book so good is reading about things that she didn't expect.
February 16, 2013
It's difficult to feel a sympathetic connection to an author who says things like "In a world full of people like me...how do you get anyone to care about anything" and "Do as much good in the world as you can, and make some money doing it" (p. 232). "Most of the sane world will think this is insipid" (p. 197). Pretty much sums it up. This isn't a horrible book, I just can't relate to it and it's not for me. If you love fashion and think Sex & the City is the best show ever made, this book may be for you.
This review is based on a free copy obtained from the publisher.
This review is based on a free copy obtained from the publisher.
January 28, 2014
I won this book from First Reads in trade for my honest review.
How do you rate someone's life story?
How they perceive it in a book, I suppose.
I thought that I was going to enjoy this one. I thought it was going to be cleverly witty, but it wasn't; the author tried too hard by going into way too much detail to reach her point, and by the time she reach said point you kinda lost interest in what she was getting at.
I thought that it would get into the relationship of what the title implied as well.
So, I am just left feeling like I missed out on something.
How do you rate someone's life story?
How they perceive it in a book, I suppose.
I thought that I was going to enjoy this one. I thought it was going to be cleverly witty, but it wasn't; the author tried too hard by going into way too much detail to reach her point, and by the time she reach said point you kinda lost interest in what she was getting at.
I thought that it would get into the relationship of what the title implied as well.
So, I am just left feeling like I missed out on something.
March 30, 2013
I enjoyed this book quite a bit, although it suffers from a little superficiality. It's a self-discovery story that doesn't take itself too seriously. I would have liked more of the jujitsu rabbi himself, and some greater exploration of what she learned about herself from hanging out with her Hasidic neighbors, but overall I recommend this title as a light and easy read.
January 16, 2013
I received this book from Goodreads as an advance readers copy and finished it last night. I'm still kind of ambivalent about it. Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde: A True Story tells the story of two intertwined lives: that of the author, Rebecca, who has lost her faith in the one thing she believes in, New York and all its promises, and Cosmo, a thirty year old rabbi who has lost his religion, and his sense of self. The book begins with the author explaining her hope to leave Pennsylvania and start a new life in New York City, becoming a sophisticated young woman who has everything she's ever wanted. However, when her whole life starts to fall apart, she moves in with Cosmo, and slowly the two begin to become friends, Rebecca eventually starting to delve into her Jewish heritage, even as the hilarious, mysterious Cosmo begins to move away from it.
What I liked:
-Cosmo, and his craziness (I can't imagine living with him!)
-Rebecca at spots, and how she goes on a search for the meaning of life, even looking deeper into her Jewish identity to do so
-The way I learned about Jewish culture from them both
-Rebecca's motley assortment of friends throughout her journey
-Cosmo saying that being Jewish isn't all that defines him anymore
-Rebecca's descriptions of all the places she went
-The ending and how Rebecca felt satisfied with doing something good and something meaningful, even if that isn't all she does
What I didn't like:
-The way Rebecca seemed to be in despair throughout half the book and it seemed to me she didn't do a thing about it
-Vera
-Chad
-The description of violence in Brooklyn
-Rebecca's irrational thought that she was going to be raped or assaulted on the way home from work
Overall, I enjoyed the book--it was a funny, enlightening journey into finding faith and being loved.
What I liked:
-Cosmo, and his craziness (I can't imagine living with him!)
-Rebecca at spots, and how she goes on a search for the meaning of life, even looking deeper into her Jewish identity to do so
-The way I learned about Jewish culture from them both
-Rebecca's motley assortment of friends throughout her journey
-Cosmo saying that being Jewish isn't all that defines him anymore
-Rebecca's descriptions of all the places she went
-The ending and how Rebecca felt satisfied with doing something good and something meaningful, even if that isn't all she does
What I didn't like:
-The way Rebecca seemed to be in despair throughout half the book and it seemed to me she didn't do a thing about it
-Vera
-Chad
-The description of violence in Brooklyn
-Rebecca's irrational thought that she was going to be raped or assaulted on the way home from work
Overall, I enjoyed the book--it was a funny, enlightening journey into finding faith and being loved.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 15, 2013
I'm really torn about Rebecca Dana's "Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde." I wanted to like it and at times I did, and very much so. Yet there is a distance to the voice, an almost superficial tone that creeps up and discredits the authenticity.
The basic premise: Dana longs to live a "Sex and the City" type of life and moves to New York, becomes a successful journalist, meets the 'perfect' guy who turns out to be not-so-perfect, and lives a fairytale life. After this all falls apart, she moves to Brooklyn and lives in a Hasidic community with a non-practicing rabbi.
The writing is strong, the cadence smooth; this is an easy read, and an enjoyable read.
My biggest criticism is that Dana stays too much on the surface, which results in too casual of an observance. It's difficult for the reader to invest much of his/herself in the book when Dana herself appears to not invest much of herself.
And what a shame, too, since the situation is rich with metaphor and symbolism (A broken heart! Hasidic Jewish community! Cultural clashes!)
I wanted for Dana to show herself in more than brief flashes. I wanted to see her make herself vulnerable (and really, isn't that why we read memoirs, to feel a connection with the writer, to see small glimpses of ourselves and our lives in their situations and feelings?), to take chances and risks,to fight and struggle and eventually come to terms with her flaws and strengths.
I wanted, damn it, an epiphany.
I never received one. Oh, there were hints and flirts but rarely did these hints and flirts spark revelation.
Such a shame, too, since Dana is a strong writer. Perhaps by her next book she'll have matured enough to offer readers less story and more meat.
Still, I recommend "Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde." It's a
well written, quick read that offers small and surprising touches of humor and humanity.
The basic premise: Dana longs to live a "Sex and the City" type of life and moves to New York, becomes a successful journalist, meets the 'perfect' guy who turns out to be not-so-perfect, and lives a fairytale life. After this all falls apart, she moves to Brooklyn and lives in a Hasidic community with a non-practicing rabbi.
The writing is strong, the cadence smooth; this is an easy read, and an enjoyable read.
My biggest criticism is that Dana stays too much on the surface, which results in too casual of an observance. It's difficult for the reader to invest much of his/herself in the book when Dana herself appears to not invest much of herself.
And what a shame, too, since the situation is rich with metaphor and symbolism (A broken heart! Hasidic Jewish community! Cultural clashes!)
I wanted for Dana to show herself in more than brief flashes. I wanted to see her make herself vulnerable (and really, isn't that why we read memoirs, to feel a connection with the writer, to see small glimpses of ourselves and our lives in their situations and feelings?), to take chances and risks,to fight and struggle and eventually come to terms with her flaws and strengths.
I wanted, damn it, an epiphany.
I never received one. Oh, there were hints and flirts but rarely did these hints and flirts spark revelation.
Such a shame, too, since Dana is a strong writer. Perhaps by her next book she'll have matured enough to offer readers less story and more meat.
Still, I recommend "Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde." It's a
well written, quick read that offers small and surprising touches of humor and humanity.
April 8, 2013
The writing was not bad. It's just that I'd read the prologue and the title (hence my borrowing it from the SPL), and the subsequent 250ish pages failed to really expand upon or improve on it.
While I appreciated that the author could make fun of the origins of her rather vapid worldview/values at times, I couldn't help but thinking that the whole topic was just not very daring subject matter. I mean, think about any other situation in which someone's ticket to life is punched (the author has a degree from Yale and seems to be super-connected to the New York and California glitterati...I mean, if you are an Ivy League grad slumming through hookups from your Emmy-winning friends and and drinking with Candace Bushnell, well, you've made it)and they get to sell a really lucrative book telling about a time when it was hard and they had a weird roommate, summitting Everest it ain't.
I think that my dissatisfaction is more of a meta-critique on our modern life when we are so connected, dialed and scheduled that the idea that a rather pedestrian romantic breakup can drive you to living with a roommate of a different religious and cultural background as a sort of crucible in which to forge your soul and serve as the adventure of a lifetime is a bit silly. I mean, really. Is this what passes for travail and adventure and big gambling in 2013?
Let's swashbuckle, people.
While I appreciated that the author could make fun of the origins of her rather vapid worldview/values at times, I couldn't help but thinking that the whole topic was just not very daring subject matter. I mean, think about any other situation in which someone's ticket to life is punched (the author has a degree from Yale and seems to be super-connected to the New York and California glitterati...I mean, if you are an Ivy League grad slumming through hookups from your Emmy-winning friends and and drinking with Candace Bushnell, well, you've made it)and they get to sell a really lucrative book telling about a time when it was hard and they had a weird roommate, summitting Everest it ain't.
I think that my dissatisfaction is more of a meta-critique on our modern life when we are so connected, dialed and scheduled that the idea that a rather pedestrian romantic breakup can drive you to living with a roommate of a different religious and cultural background as a sort of crucible in which to forge your soul and serve as the adventure of a lifetime is a bit silly. I mean, really. Is this what passes for travail and adventure and big gambling in 2013?
Let's swashbuckle, people.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 14, 2013
In JUJITSU RABBI AND THE GODLESS BLOND, Rebecca Dana chronicles her love of all things New York - the fashion, the culture, the trend setters and the city itself. After coming out of a devastating break-up and moving into an apartment with a Russian rabbi, she examines her life - relationships, work, worshiping at the altar of New York - and tries to figure out if her chosen religion, following the guru Carrie Bradshaw, is what she needs to be doing with her life.
Self-indulgent? A little. She seemed compelled to name drop...celebrities she'd interviewed or famous people she'd seen at parties, and this got a little tiresome.
I mostly enjoyed her interactions with her rabbi roommate, Cosmo. He helped her reexamine her Jewish roots and delve more deeply into the Jewish faith. Dana wondered about the superficiality of her life and life choices. Is it enough to really love following fashion trends?
After her year of sharing an apartment with Cosmo, she came around to the New York life she'd chosen and was able to see it with new eyes and embrace it with new-found acceptance. And maybe a bit more appreciation for her Jewish roots as well.
This review is also found on my blog...
www.notthenewyorktimesbookreview.blog...
Self-indulgent? A little. She seemed compelled to name drop...celebrities she'd interviewed or famous people she'd seen at parties, and this got a little tiresome.
I mostly enjoyed her interactions with her rabbi roommate, Cosmo. He helped her reexamine her Jewish roots and delve more deeply into the Jewish faith. Dana wondered about the superficiality of her life and life choices. Is it enough to really love following fashion trends?
After her year of sharing an apartment with Cosmo, she came around to the New York life she'd chosen and was able to see it with new eyes and embrace it with new-found acceptance. And maybe a bit more appreciation for her Jewish roots as well.
This review is also found on my blog...
www.notthenewyorktimesbookreview.blog...
August 13, 2013
When this book first landed in my hands, I thought, "Great, yet another memoir by a Carrie Bradshaw-wannabe whose Sex in the City lifestyle falls apart after a breakup." There were parts of the book that were just tiresome -- the name-dropping ("Tina Brown! Tina Brown!"), and the accounts of clubs and bars and parties that made up her vapid Manhattan existence.
But what was so refreshing about the memoir and made me keep reading is that Rebecca Dana is so damn unapologetic about what she wanted out of life. She wanted it, she made it happen, and I admire her for that. And despite Cosmo, the jujitsu rabbi, having less airtime than the book's title led me to believe, she does a great job introducing the ultra-Orthodox Jewish side of NYC to someone who was unaware of that world. The book is NOT predictable in the sense that once she became more immersed in the Lubavitcher world, I had no idea what was going to happen to her. Was she going to become more Jewish? Run screaming back to Manhattan? Hook up with Cosmo? Who knew, and though the ending wasn't very satisfying, I couldn't stop reading to find out.
But what was so refreshing about the memoir and made me keep reading is that Rebecca Dana is so damn unapologetic about what she wanted out of life. She wanted it, she made it happen, and I admire her for that. And despite Cosmo, the jujitsu rabbi, having less airtime than the book's title led me to believe, she does a great job introducing the ultra-Orthodox Jewish side of NYC to someone who was unaware of that world. The book is NOT predictable in the sense that once she became more immersed in the Lubavitcher world, I had no idea what was going to happen to her. Was she going to become more Jewish? Run screaming back to Manhattan? Hook up with Cosmo? Who knew, and though the ending wasn't very satisfying, I couldn't stop reading to find out.
January 30, 2016
Gratuitous use of "rabbi" to sell a rambling slice of the author's life. Dana repeatedly calls being a mother shallow and confining; this from a woman who paid someone to asphyxiate her for a near-death experience toward spiritual awakening. It is hard to believe that Dana has made her living writing. Very little humor and a bit of insight into the Hasidic Jewish life by a shallow, self-centered narrator.
October 3, 2013
I had high hopes for this book, and was intrigued by both the title, and the jacket description. The book however just dragged on. I kept waiting for the point of the story, yet realized in the last 50 pages that it was just going nowhere.
January 30, 2013
While some of the episodes are funny, as a whole I found the book disjointed and choppy.
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November 24, 2024I'm surprised by the low rating. It's at least a 3.7 for me.
This woman rubs elbows with all sorts of people I've heard of in NYC. Her sharp writing makes me wonder if I've read her articles without knowing it (probably not as she herself derides the puff pieces she writes, which I probably don't read). She's a clever writer and has a way with words and I cracked up a few times ("Put that in your shofar and blow it"). She worked for Washington Post and Daily Beast and the Wall Street Journal. She was at fashion week and invited to all sorts of fashionable parties. All she wanted was to live the life of Sex and the City (which I never watched). And she ends up searching for meaning, living platonically with a Rabbi who may or may not be halachically Jewish (his mother or mother's mother maybe didn't convert Orthodox) they introduce each other to each other's worlds in a strange comradeship.
She makes some shrewd points about what it means to be a journalist who is writing for clicks vs... I guess, telling the world what is happening?
Instead of being a painful memoir, it's a memoir of a specific, finite time, and of a very interesting cross section of cultures, and has the satisfying foil of them on opposite paths that cross in a point of time.
This woman rubs elbows with all sorts of people I've heard of in NYC. Her sharp writing makes me wonder if I've read her articles without knowing it (probably not as she herself derides the puff pieces she writes, which I probably don't read). She's a clever writer and has a way with words and I cracked up a few times ("Put that in your shofar and blow it"). She worked for Washington Post and Daily Beast and the Wall Street Journal. She was at fashion week and invited to all sorts of fashionable parties. All she wanted was to live the life of Sex and the City (which I never watched). And she ends up searching for meaning, living platonically with a Rabbi who may or may not be halachically Jewish (his mother or mother's mother maybe didn't convert Orthodox) they introduce each other to each other's worlds in a strange comradeship.
She makes some shrewd points about what it means to be a journalist who is writing for clicks vs... I guess, telling the world what is happening?
Instead of being a painful memoir, it's a memoir of a specific, finite time, and of a very interesting cross section of cultures, and has the satisfying foil of them on opposite paths that cross in a point of time.
June 16, 2022
Not quite an epic Odyssey, the story of Rebecca’s life journey is sometimes predictable, (in a good way), sometimes surprising, (had it not been for the rats, might she have stayed in Crown Heights?), but always with a colorful, flavorful twist - be it the scent of freshly baked challah or the high brow salads at the fashion gatherings, and thus, for me, a page turner. Don’t misunderstand - not a page turner in the sense of a wild murder mystery where you (and the authorities) are one step behind the seemingly mild-mannered good boy type who shops for his ailing mom and volunteers at a nearby hospital once each week, yet spends his weekends executing the torturous demise of his neighbors. No, a page turner in the way you are sure the next few pages will finally reveal life’s truths, and from this simple revelation comes joy and peace. So, does it? I wont spoil the ending here because Rebecca’s journey in many ways is just like our own.
October 1, 2017
I really thought this book would be about a jujitsu rabbi and a godless blonde, but it's mostly about the godless blonde. Rebecca's relationship breaks up and she finds herself plunged into misery. Needing a new place to live, she ends up in Crown Heights in Brooklyn, living in a very orthodox Jewish community with a Lubavitch rabbi who works at a copy shop. She and Cosmo have a good relationship, but the book is mostly about Rebecca's life and Cosmo the rabbi is only a bit player.
November 17, 2024
A lovely piece of gossip. Lots of name-dropping.
Seems interesting and maybe useful to read about the cross-border wanderings between high fashion and Chabad/Lubavitcher Jewish Orthodoxy. And I miss NYC/Brooklyn so the locales were fun too.
Seems interesting and maybe useful to read about the cross-border wanderings between high fashion and Chabad/Lubavitcher Jewish Orthodoxy. And I miss NYC/Brooklyn so the locales were fun too.
July 25, 2018
Fun story, good visuals. Not enough Jujitsu.
July 11, 2020
When I saw this in a bookstore years ago, the title drew my attention. It sounded interesting to me - funny & perhaps thought-provoking, but it really wasn’t as good as I expected!
January 23, 2021
3.5/5 ⭐
April 19, 2022
Took three times to start over before I finally got into it. Thought it would be a bit more..... But it never got there.
January 4, 2024
Loved all the references to SITC - learned a lot about Orthodox Jews. Fun memoire of random roommate living.
July 10, 2014
For a generation of women weaned on episodes of “Sex and the City,” the raw reality of New York can come as a surprise. Sure there are ample opportunities for brunch, but newspaper columnists with a closet full of Monolos? As if! Rebecca Dana’s memoir is about the disappointments and revelations of New York after she found a way to fit into the fancy world and cover the bill. As an infant New Yorker myself, and one raised on the same formula, there was a lot that resonated for me in “Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde,” and much that was entirely foreign.
Dana is a Yale graduate from Western Pennsylvania who set her sights on New York and its glittery magic at a young age. She traded in a job at the Washington Post for one at New York Observer, which eventually lead to a place at Newsweek’s The Daily Beast. She found herself the elusive, perfect-handsome-lawyer boyfriend, and they moved into the ideal West Village Apartment. Her work as a writer included exotic travels, fancy clothes, a booming social life, etc. etc. And then the bottom falls out from underneath her.
The perfect boyfriend tells her he doesn’t find her pretty enough, and reveals a slew of infidelities that this has caused him to rake up over the perfect years. (Dana tactfully doesn’t name names and provides very few personal details about her ex; lucky for him, because he was clearly an enormous POS.) It’s the wake-up call Dana needs in order to realize that a lot of what she always wanted (the job, the clothes, the life) and got, was empty. She had worked harder to build an image, rather than a complete sense of self or community. As Dana leaves behind the wreckage of her perfect life, she stretches her limits and changes her vantage point in order to rebuild.
New York looks different from the perspective of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Dana moves in with a craigslist roommate, whose name is Cosmo, a Lubavitch rabbi in the midst of a crisis of faith. While working at a copy shop and learning jujitsu, Cosmo faces his own realignment with the world, and Dana learns volumes about the other lives available within the city limits. Over the course of the nine months she spends in Brooklyn she’s immersed in a different strain of New York City, one that’s insular, strict, spiritual and entirely other from how she lived and what she had learned to want.
Dana’s prose is easy to inhale and her memoir is a good reminder of how easily one can lose one’s bearings in a city teaming with success, money, and the beautiful people you are somehow supposed to be. It is also a reminder that glossy high life is just a slice of a much more complex and strange world that strains the seams of the five boroughs. The time she spends living in the Hasidic community and coming in contact with their approaches and views broadens her horizons. Dana doesn’t embark on a complex religious journey nor did I get the sense that the lives of the devout whom she met would continue to influence her on a daily basis after she left Crown Heights. She does, however, give the reader something more to chew on than the stale fodder of a failed relationship and its wreckage. Dana works hard to reconcile her pitfalls with where she has come from and where she wants to go, teaching the reader a thing or two.
http://bookingaround.tumblr.com/
Dana is a Yale graduate from Western Pennsylvania who set her sights on New York and its glittery magic at a young age. She traded in a job at the Washington Post for one at New York Observer, which eventually lead to a place at Newsweek’s The Daily Beast. She found herself the elusive, perfect-handsome-lawyer boyfriend, and they moved into the ideal West Village Apartment. Her work as a writer included exotic travels, fancy clothes, a booming social life, etc. etc. And then the bottom falls out from underneath her.
The perfect boyfriend tells her he doesn’t find her pretty enough, and reveals a slew of infidelities that this has caused him to rake up over the perfect years. (Dana tactfully doesn’t name names and provides very few personal details about her ex; lucky for him, because he was clearly an enormous POS.) It’s the wake-up call Dana needs in order to realize that a lot of what she always wanted (the job, the clothes, the life) and got, was empty. She had worked harder to build an image, rather than a complete sense of self or community. As Dana leaves behind the wreckage of her perfect life, she stretches her limits and changes her vantage point in order to rebuild.
New York looks different from the perspective of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Dana moves in with a craigslist roommate, whose name is Cosmo, a Lubavitch rabbi in the midst of a crisis of faith. While working at a copy shop and learning jujitsu, Cosmo faces his own realignment with the world, and Dana learns volumes about the other lives available within the city limits. Over the course of the nine months she spends in Brooklyn she’s immersed in a different strain of New York City, one that’s insular, strict, spiritual and entirely other from how she lived and what she had learned to want.
Dana’s prose is easy to inhale and her memoir is a good reminder of how easily one can lose one’s bearings in a city teaming with success, money, and the beautiful people you are somehow supposed to be. It is also a reminder that glossy high life is just a slice of a much more complex and strange world that strains the seams of the five boroughs. The time she spends living in the Hasidic community and coming in contact with their approaches and views broadens her horizons. Dana doesn’t embark on a complex religious journey nor did I get the sense that the lives of the devout whom she met would continue to influence her on a daily basis after she left Crown Heights. She does, however, give the reader something more to chew on than the stale fodder of a failed relationship and its wreckage. Dana works hard to reconcile her pitfalls with where she has come from and where she wants to go, teaching the reader a thing or two.
http://bookingaround.tumblr.com/
February 8, 2013
Growing up in Pittsburgh, Rebecca Dana dreamed of the day she would come to New York to pursue the glamorous life she knew she was destined for. Like so many young women influenced by Carrie Bradshaw's life in Sex in the City, Rebecca wanted to go to the right parties, wear the right clothes, date the right guys, and follow the right path. "I wish I wanted to fix cleft palates in Africa, but the truth is I wanted a glamorous life."
And once she settled in, she found a job as a columnist for The Daily Beast, and had the chance to attend the parties, wear the clothes, and socialize with the people she always dreamed of, plus she found the perfect relationship. But when the relationship suddenly turns sour, it leaves her confidence shaken and she wonders whether her life's ambitions were the right ones to pursue. She winds up moving into an apartment in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood with Cosmo, a lapsed Lubavitch rabbi who takes jujitsu classes and works at a copy shop while waiting for his green card.
As Rebecca tries to reconcile her job profiling fashion and society with the traditions of the Lubavitch community, she also struggles with questions of faith. A lapsed Reform Jew, she wonders whether she'd find fulfillment if she pursued God, religion, and marriage. But at the same time, Cosmo struggles with his own spirituality, as he tries to decide whether to continue pursuing his rabbinical ambitions or following his less ecumenical desires. The two live somewhat reversed lives for a while, with Rebecca exploring the Lubavitch religion and Cosmo eating bacon.
While Rebecca fancies herself a Carrie Bradshaw prodigy, in reality, she's a much more philosophical person. Her journey of self-discovery is sometimes humorous, sometimes reflective, and it shows her that her ambitions aren't fundamentally wrong and don't make her a bad person. "To understand this, you don't have to abandon your entire life, everything you ever wished for, and move in with a Xerox shop rabbi in Brooklyn, but in my case, it certainly helped."
I'll admit that I was first interested in reading this book because how could you resist one with this title? But I really enjoyed reading Rebecca Dana's writing, and getting immersed in her journey of self-discovery was really engaging and amusing. She's the type of person who you'd think would be totally underestimated, that someone who writes about fashion and gossip might be insipid and shallow, but her story was much more interesting than you'd expect. This isn't a heavy memoir, but it does touch on issues of spirituality and finding meaning in one's life.
"Our first dreams grip us tightest and can refuse to let go." But Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde proves that living your childhood dreams isn't necessarily a bad thing, and sometimes that realization is hard to come by.
And once she settled in, she found a job as a columnist for The Daily Beast, and had the chance to attend the parties, wear the clothes, and socialize with the people she always dreamed of, plus she found the perfect relationship. But when the relationship suddenly turns sour, it leaves her confidence shaken and she wonders whether her life's ambitions were the right ones to pursue. She winds up moving into an apartment in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood with Cosmo, a lapsed Lubavitch rabbi who takes jujitsu classes and works at a copy shop while waiting for his green card.
As Rebecca tries to reconcile her job profiling fashion and society with the traditions of the Lubavitch community, she also struggles with questions of faith. A lapsed Reform Jew, she wonders whether she'd find fulfillment if she pursued God, religion, and marriage. But at the same time, Cosmo struggles with his own spirituality, as he tries to decide whether to continue pursuing his rabbinical ambitions or following his less ecumenical desires. The two live somewhat reversed lives for a while, with Rebecca exploring the Lubavitch religion and Cosmo eating bacon.
While Rebecca fancies herself a Carrie Bradshaw prodigy, in reality, she's a much more philosophical person. Her journey of self-discovery is sometimes humorous, sometimes reflective, and it shows her that her ambitions aren't fundamentally wrong and don't make her a bad person. "To understand this, you don't have to abandon your entire life, everything you ever wished for, and move in with a Xerox shop rabbi in Brooklyn, but in my case, it certainly helped."
I'll admit that I was first interested in reading this book because how could you resist one with this title? But I really enjoyed reading Rebecca Dana's writing, and getting immersed in her journey of self-discovery was really engaging and amusing. She's the type of person who you'd think would be totally underestimated, that someone who writes about fashion and gossip might be insipid and shallow, but her story was much more interesting than you'd expect. This isn't a heavy memoir, but it does touch on issues of spirituality and finding meaning in one's life.
"Our first dreams grip us tightest and can refuse to let go." But Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde proves that living your childhood dreams isn't necessarily a bad thing, and sometimes that realization is hard to come by.
September 21, 2016
I'm speaking cautiously because I'm in the process of writing a memoir; I'm also an unknown who thinks she has an entertaining story, so I'm going to be understanding here bc I want my book judged objectively.
That being said, I think this story has so much potential that wasn't tapped. I felt that there was too much exposition -- too much explaining and "telling" -- and not enough showing. There was dialogue, but it didn't really make the characters richer or add to the narrative; much of that was just told to the reader rather than the characters saying things themselves. I also felt that there was a lot of unnecessary detail about pop culture events at the time. I get it; she was a culture reporter, but instead of weaving those events into the narrative, the author just explained them, leaving me to either skip them or wonder why she was telling me this.
Basically, I felt like I was overhearing a conversation between a couple of white women having brunch in SoHo on a Sunday, except only one woman talked the entire time (And, yes, I have overheard way too many of these brunches). Dana never became a character to me, so she didn't have a chance to develop. I'm disappointed bc the overarching story is such a good one, and none of the characters were done justice.
That being said, I think this story has so much potential that wasn't tapped. I felt that there was too much exposition -- too much explaining and "telling" -- and not enough showing. There was dialogue, but it didn't really make the characters richer or add to the narrative; much of that was just told to the reader rather than the characters saying things themselves. I also felt that there was a lot of unnecessary detail about pop culture events at the time. I get it; she was a culture reporter, but instead of weaving those events into the narrative, the author just explained them, leaving me to either skip them or wonder why she was telling me this.
Basically, I felt like I was overhearing a conversation between a couple of white women having brunch in SoHo on a Sunday, except only one woman talked the entire time (And, yes, I have overheard way too many of these brunches). Dana never became a character to me, so she didn't have a chance to develop. I'm disappointed bc the overarching story is such a good one, and none of the characters were done justice.
March 28, 2013
When I picked up this book, I figured it was about how two different people meet and unlikely though it may seem, become friends. While Cosmo (the jujitsu rabbi whose apartment the author ends up sharing) and Rebecca interact and attend Jewish dinners and celebrations, this book is more about the author's journey of discovering who she is, what she wants, and being OK with what she finds.
At the beginning, I was a little bored. Not that the author's beginnings in New York are dull (and how can you not simultaneously cringe and laugh at a rabbi gumming raw bacon) but things are told in a certain numb, occasionally whiny way that at times felt as dry and *ack* as burnt toast. But the more you read of the story, the more the mood, tone, and style change and the writing becomes reflective, more interesting, at times humorous and insightful. It seemed to me the author enjoyed learning about the Jewish faith, and that made it enjoyable and interesting to me, as well. Not only are there questions - there are answers. There is real growth occurring and it's easily felt and seen through the different way she expresses herself. This resolution is what won me over.
Rebecca's work and social connections (and acquaintances) are fascinating - seeing how she meets and interacts with, and how these people respond to her at parties, fundraisers and other events is captivating. I loved the "women of power" who are bringing awareness to the plights of raped and abused women in the world and seeking solutions to help them. I liked the work Rebecca does and how she talks about it. The time Rebecca spends in New Orleans is educational and enlightening, and I loved the way she explained what she was doing, seeing and what she thought of it all.
"You have to stop living as the person you want to be and start living as the person you are," is what Rebecca ultimately has to offer. In her search for happiness, love and fulfillment, she began by thinking she COULD be a "better" person and give more of her life to helping others. She finally comes to believe she could just be herself, and help others in ways unique to that person she is. Accepting yourself isn't always easy when you feel an urge to be more, but being all right with who you are doesn't mean you can't still grow, evolve, and find yourself giving in ways you never suspected you could.
At the beginning, I was a little bored. Not that the author's beginnings in New York are dull (and how can you not simultaneously cringe and laugh at a rabbi gumming raw bacon) but things are told in a certain numb, occasionally whiny way that at times felt as dry and *ack* as burnt toast. But the more you read of the story, the more the mood, tone, and style change and the writing becomes reflective, more interesting, at times humorous and insightful. It seemed to me the author enjoyed learning about the Jewish faith, and that made it enjoyable and interesting to me, as well. Not only are there questions - there are answers. There is real growth occurring and it's easily felt and seen through the different way she expresses herself. This resolution is what won me over.
Rebecca's work and social connections (and acquaintances) are fascinating - seeing how she meets and interacts with, and how these people respond to her at parties, fundraisers and other events is captivating. I loved the "women of power" who are bringing awareness to the plights of raped and abused women in the world and seeking solutions to help them. I liked the work Rebecca does and how she talks about it. The time Rebecca spends in New Orleans is educational and enlightening, and I loved the way she explained what she was doing, seeing and what she thought of it all.
"You have to stop living as the person you want to be and start living as the person you are," is what Rebecca ultimately has to offer. In her search for happiness, love and fulfillment, she began by thinking she COULD be a "better" person and give more of her life to helping others. She finally comes to believe she could just be herself, and help others in ways unique to that person she is. Accepting yourself isn't always easy when you feel an urge to be more, but being all right with who you are doesn't mean you can't still grow, evolve, and find yourself giving in ways you never suspected you could.
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