Lovingkindness

by Anne Roiphe

From the acclaimed author of "Fruitful" comes a novel of the love between a mother and daughter. Annie Johnson has worked hard to raise her daughter, Andrea. She is shocked, therefore, when 22-year-old Andrea calls from Israel and announces that she has joined an extreme right-wing Orthodox Jewish group and will be seeking an arranged marriage.

Genres: Fiction, Jewish, Judaism, Literature

272 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1987

About the author

Over a four-decade career, Roiphe has proven so prolific that the critic Sally Eckhoff observed, "tracing Anne Roiphe's career often feels like following somebody through a revolving door: the requirements of keeping the pace can be trying." (Eckhoff described the writer as "a free-thinking welter of contradictions, a never-say-die feminist who's absolutely nuts about children"). Roiphe published her first novel, Digging Out, in 1967. Her second, Up The Sandbox (1970), became a national best-seller and made the author's career.

Roiphe has since published seven novels and two memoirs, while contributing essays and reviews to The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, and others. In 1993, The New York Times described her as "a writer who has never toed a party line, feminist or otherwise." Her 1996 memoir Fruitful A memoir of Modem Motherhood was nominated for the National Book Award

From 1997 to 2002, she served as a columnist for The New York Observer. Her memoir Epilogue was published in 2008, and another memoir, Art and Madness, in 2011.

Reviews

[Gabi Aharonov · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's not often I manage to finish a novel over one Shabbat- but I did. Not because I enjoyed this book, but because I wanted to be done with it ASAP.

The plot itself was okay- the mom Annie (um, author Anne Roiphe couldn't come up with another name for the protagonist... but I digress...) has to come to terms with her daughter becoming a religious Jew. She seemed more accepting of her kid being a drifting drug addict, but whatever, we all have our priorities.

My issue is how poorly this was researched. Like, cool, you got the feminism down, the reasons why an American secular Jewish mom would hate that her kid chose a different path which is seeped in a religion her father turned away from. But man, did she get the religious stuff wrong. Unmarried women do not cover their hair. At a shabbat meal, everyone washes their hands- not just men. The smelling spice thing DOES NOT HAPPEN AT A SHABBAT MEAL- only at the Havdalla ceremony. She has a scene in which a woman comes in to see an Israeli lawyer because the rabbinite will not allow her to be remarried because her 3yo son's father (her husband) died, and she needs to do a yibum ceremony WHICH ONLY NEEDS TO BE DONE IF THEY DID NOT HAVE CHILDREN. There are so so so many issues in this- the lack of authenticity here completely ruined the book.

Listen, as someone who is part of this oft unrepresented community, I was kind of interested to see what would happen- but it just disappointed me in every which way. Don't waste your time with this one, I'm sure there are books that are better researched and more nuanced about people who have had to deal with this particular struggle (at least I hope so).

I'm not going to bother about the characters or whatever else. Though the therapist was funny.

CW: Drugs, suicide, attempted kidnapping, too many flashbacks

[Heather Fineisen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An activist and writer for women's rights has a daughter who travels to Israel and joins a yeshiva. The book reminisces between the daughter's upbringing and her troubled youth. Through letters, the mother and daughter go back and forth about their beliefs and lives. A very thoughtful complaining the two extremes and how they can possibly be reconciled.

[Laura Spira · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never heard of Anne Roiphe but this book was mentioned in an online discussion and sounded interesting. I am very glad that I discovered it.

The story is simple: Annie is a single parent, an academic, a fierce feminist and a secular Jew whose daughter Andrea is an unsettled young woman who has caused her mother much worry and has ended up in a yeshiva in Jerusalem where she plans to enter an arranged marriage with another young American whose path there has been similar.

Annie wrestles with her feelings about her daughter's repudiation of the independence that her mother has fought for. I found this beautifully expressed in Roiphe's writing and very touching. Intellectually Annie finds her daughter's decisions baffling but she recognises the emotional element and tries very hard to come to terms with this. I liked the way in which Roiphe allows her characters to express their different points of view through letters.

Annie's widowed status and lack of contact with her family may be one factor in Andrea's search for a place where she fits, which she finds among her Orthodox Jewish "family". Annie's friends provide her with little solace and she reaches out to Andrea's psychotherapist for support: his wonderfully cynical and humorous approach does not appear to help her directly but he does highlight the impossibility of knowing what might be the best solution.

Andrea's prospective bridegroom comes from a more conventional family background and his parents have no doubts about what they should do. While Annie finds some comfort in sharing her anxiety with them, she remains doubtful and her reluctance to act leaves open the possibility of contact with her daughter continuing.

There are some memorable scenes in the book. Annie's discomfort with the unfamiliar ritual that her daughter has embraced is very effectively conveyed and the bridegroom's parents' attempt to reclaim their son is vividly described.

A very worthwhile read.

[Shaina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate this with every fiber of my being.

[june3 · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is so much to say about this book.

Mom Annie Johnson is a secular New York Jewish single Mom and college professor, doing her best to bring up her wild-child daughter, hoping beyond hope that she will settle into something resembling a path to reasonable adulthood, things that might include, say, graduate school and a meaningful, fulfilling career. Things that Annie understands and appreciates.

Daughter, 22-year-old Andrea Johnson, defies all perceived restrictions, has been unable to complete high school, and college is but a distant dream. She has had three abortions, ingested countless drugs, and emerges from the far beyond at extended intervals in need of money and/or a crash-pad. That is, until she contacts Annie from Jerusalem, where she has landed at Yeshiva Rachel, intent on becoming an Orthodox Jew, a Ba'ale Teshuvah.

The story proceeds from there. Among the characters, we meet members of the Orthodox Community in Israel who see Andrea (re-named Sarai) as saved from a life of uselessness and self-destruction and one more observant Jew to increase and multiply. We meet the Roses, a pediatrician and a teacher from Cleveland, and the parents of Sarai's intended husband, who are sure of exactly what they need to do to rescue their son from this fate (while Annie is clearly not sure that she agrees). And the responses of secular Israelis, such as the psychiatrist Naomi Bar Shen Lov (sp?), who scoffs and asks why American Jews persist in sending them all the broken down ex-druggie trash.

There is a theme here that transcends religion or even the expectations of parents and children. As Americans, most of us believe in personal choice with almost religious fervor. It's part of our national heritage in the land of the free and home of the brave. We are free to make our own choices, we are free to @#$@# things up, but it's OUR choice. It is hard for many of us to understand how anyone coming from our culture could actually crave the degree of order and control that is part and parcel of an ultra-religious environment such as this. But it does happen, and there are people who actually do better and have better lives within this context.

Throughout the book, Annie asks Andrea/Sarai, how can YOU, who could not live with any rules at all, live with these astonishing restrictions? It's hard to explain. Plainly, some people simply can't handle freedom. I am fairly certain that one specific member of my extended family would have been much less stressed, more productive, and yes, happier (!!) if he had been praised for accomplishing things within his reach (for example, displays of religious piety) and had less freedom to make bad decisions.

Wonderful book with much to think about.

[Chava · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the books I enjoyed reading so much that I didn't want it to end, and when it did end, I was a little disappointed. The book is narrated by Anne, whose daughter Andrea has join "the yeshiva Rachel" in Jerusalem. Andrea, now 22, did not finish high school, had 3 abortions, and experimented with drugs. Anne sees this latest venture as another whim. But when Andrea, now Sarai, informs Anne that she will be agreeing to an arranged marriage, it sets off all the bells and whistles that have defined Anne's independent, feminist, academic life. Anne begins having strange dreams that involve Rabbi Nachman telling stories.

In the end, Anne does not stop her daughter from getting married, but after the tension of the novel, and the big drama where the groom's parents kidnap him and his fellow yeshiva students re-kidnap him, the ending was definitely an anti-climax. Anne dreams that her granddaughter will visit and Anne will open her eyes to a less insular way of life.

The book examined the mother daughter relationship and raised a question: we want our daughters to have "better" lives than we did, but what constitutes better? What happens when you daughter has no interest in any of the things that her mother hopes her daughter aspires to? For Anne, it's a little scary that her daughter has decided she wants to be a wife and mother and live by "ancient" rules. By the end of the book, she realizes she can neither protect Andrea nor dictate her life.

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the premise of a secular mother disturbed by her daughter's choice to join a fundamentalist religious group, but the book was kind of tedious.

[Liza Maggio · Rating 2 out of 5]

My favorite thing about this was the opportunity to view 1987 liberal feminism (abortions = sad, being overweight/underweight = horrible, too many lesbians = problematic). Mores change. The parents in this novel seem to want to choose their children's jobs, fates. They expect their kids to do what they (the parents) want, not what they (the offspring themselves) want. I may not want children I love to live cloistered lives, but nor do I expect them to be, well, any particular profession. I just want them to be happy, contributing, self-sufficient, kind.
Also, religious people are not all crazy, right-wing nuts who eschew the innumerable pleasures of the secular world.

No chapters. Just section breaks. Very dense prose. A bit too much for me. I was interested in the story. I waded through the philosophizing.

[Audrey Ettinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had read this years ago and picked it up again. Most broadly, this is about parents and children, and the ways in which adult children's choices make the parent question their parenting decisions (and life decisions!). I found the dream scenes with Rabbi Nachman a bit distracting, and not as "deep" as they were likely meant to be. Also interesting as a specific case: what does it mean to go from living as a secular Jew to being ultra-Orthodox? Is this a rejection of freedom, or a unique way to pursue freedom?

Since I rarely felt the urge to read more than a few pages at a time, I apparently didn't find it too gripping!

[Carolyn Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Novel about mother-daughter relationship; grown daughter becomes a member of an Israeli Yeshiva.  Thoughtful writing, strong feminist undertones.  I liked it a lot!.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the dichotomy between the feminist mother and the daughter who joins and ultra-orthodox sect in Israel. Some of the writing was beautiful, but some seemed very heavy and overdone.

[Laurel-Rain · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Annie Johnson, a feminist single mother learns that her twentysomething daughter Andrea has joined a Yeshiva in Israel, she is stunned. After all, this is the same daughter who partied, got piercings and tattoos, and experimented with drugs. The same daughter whose
self-destructive behavior and rebellious attitude have kept her on tenterhooks for the past several years.

Not sure what to make of it, Annie researches all that is available to know about this Yeshiva – and learns that they are a traditional Jewish group that focuses on teaching the Talmud, how to keep kosher, and, startlingly, they arrange marriages between the men and women.

This is such an antithesis of everything she has taught her daughter, so Annie reels from the information. At first, she tells herself that Andrea will tire of the group, as she has of everything else in her young life. Her attention span is short, etc. Then she receives a letter – Andrea informs her that she is now “Sarai”, her new name and that she is becoming a new person.

Over the next several months, they communicate, and with each epistle, Annie’s heart sinks – she falls into reminiscences of the times when Andrea, as a young girl, was loving, affectionate, and didn’t rebel. She is also tortured by dreams of an ancient Rabbi, who comes to her with messages – metamorphic messages that seem to be premonitions of sorts.

Finally Annie receives a communication from the Rose family, whose son has been chosen to marry Andrea/Sarai. They, too, are disturbed by the turn of events. They commiserate and
ultimately, plan to go to Israel to investigate.

In Israel, events become unpredictable as the story winds down to its unexpected conclusion.

What does Annie learn at the Yeshiva? What do the Roses do to turn things around? And what, ultimately, will be the final resolution of this most unusual mother/daughter conflict?

“Lovingkindness” is a unique exploration of the fragile mother/daughter bond and the events that shape it.

[Dr. Bee · Rating 3 out of 5]

In many ways this book hit close to home, as my brother made Aliyah with his family. That said, I would never want to take away his choice to be what he wants and believe what he wants. I may not agree with his decisions, but they are his, as a grown man, to make. I don't want anyone telling me what to think or how to live, so others should be afforded the same respect.

The book addressed the aforementioned issues. I enjoyed the back and forth dialogue, in the form of letter writing. I enjoyed the honesty of the mother's thought processes surrounding her confusion, anger, blame, and shame regarding her daughter's decision to live in the Yeshiva and abide according to very stringent and prescribed laws. I think blind-following was captured to a certain degree.

I wish I could give it more than three stars, but there is so much gray area between 'liked it' and 'really liked it' that three is what it gets.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an interesting account of the struggle of a mother who has strived to achieve as a feminist while her daughter with a troubled history is filling the emptiness of her life in America with a traditional patriarchal Judaism in Israel. A lot of young Jews (seeking something more than mainstream consumerist American culture typically gives them) who travel to Israel to learn about Jewish tradition go through a phase of ambivalence about their secular or less traditional upbringings and also may get connected to schools of thought which avoid dealing with critical analytical postmodernist thinking. In any case, this is a story of such a mother and daughter, from the mother's somewhat appalled perspective.

[Jandy James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who is truly in possession of their own self? And if you don't have possession of your Self, who and what has possession of you? That is the path this wonderfully told story took me on. A mother is so concerned when her young daughter seems adrift and susceptible to gutter influences (ie drugs) but she is even more alarmed (rightly so) when same daughter joins an ultra conservative cult. When you get right down to it though, aren't we ALL members of (oc)cults?

[Carol Catinari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably a 3.5 book as it started off really annoying me. The author's voice was so pontifical, she knows it all. But as the story developed, so did the author's viewpoint. About mid way through, I noticed I was hooked. And by the end, I realized that I did indeed like the book. Several levels of my liking the book: mother-daughter and cycles of life; religious vs rationalist; and also a feminist dimension. So somewhere between 3.5 and 4 for my rating

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite Jewish-themed books. Explores the dichotomy of a feminist-thinking mother and her drug-addled daughter who ultimately turns to strict, Orthodox Judaism. The story is told largely through letters and personal narratives, which eloquently raise complex and unbiased questions about the nature of faith, family, and a woman's role in both.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to agree with the previous comments that found this book tedious. I was especially thrown off by the dreams and visions of the Rabbi--what the heck?

The good out of this book is that Annie finally reconciles, on the last few pages, with the choice her daughter makes and actually envisions her no yet existing granddaughter visiting her in New York.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book started off a bit slowly for me, but in the end I was surprised how much I enjoyed it -- the story of a feminist, secular Jewish woman's grief over her daughter's decision to join a Jerusalem yeshiva. What made the book good was Roiphe's ability to portray both "sides" with sensitivity and compassion. Definitely a worthwhile read.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost sails into backlash against feminism territory, but winds up being an honest look at a familial/political dilema.

[Diana Bloom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Especially good in that frummies and seculars both enjoy it.

[Elisa Winter · Rating 4 out of 5]

What gorgeous language!! Terrific author, I will read more of her works, but OH! I was so mad at the Mommy in this book. Unbelievable act of betrayal.

[Shana Elbrecht · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had some practical suggestions for teachers, but in general was a little too earthy happy-lovey for me.

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved her writing about the challenging mother/daughter relationship and mother's dilemma.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This is an amazing book. This is a story about a mother/daughter relationship and much more. It was inspiring, informative and intense.