Review: What Jewish Looks Like
What Jewish Looks Like
by Liz Kleinrock and Caroline Kusin Pritchard, illustrated by Iris Gottlieb
HarperCollins, 2024
Category: Middle Grade
Reviewer: Rochelle Newman-Carrasco
Buy at Bookshop.org
Both The Table of Contents and Introduction of the collective biography What Jewish Looks Like provide a road map for the way this much-needed book brings together a wide spectrum of individuals and organizations, identities and philosophies, beliefs, values, and causes. There are “Big Question” pages that add to the rich learning experience one can have with this book, no matter your own depth of involvement in all things Jewish. The authors do a good job of taking on the complexity of their topic. We are introduced to individuals and organizations in a thematic way. Tikkun Olam, for example, brings us those who are known for Repairing a Broken World. In this section alone we meet Jews from Ethopia, to Austria to Los Angeles, California. A chapter named Adam Yachid, Unique Value of Every Person, underscores the book's message of individuality and unity. The research and storytelling is robust, specific and inspiring. The artwork is vibrant and powerful. Complete with quotes, the art begs to be made into posters that one can hang in a classroom or anywhere. What Jewish Looks Like does an excellent job of recognizing the diversity within the diversity, which is all too often flattened in traditional cultural siloing of groups by race and ethnicity. Here readers get to meet Black Jews, Latiné Jews, Asian Jews, Indian Jews, Paraolympic Jews, Jews by choice and Jews by birth, Jews from every dimension of the LGBTQ+ community, Jews of every age and activists for a wide range of causes and issues.
What Jewish Looks Like accomplishes its stated mission. Yes, it shows us what Jews look like in the physical sense of the idea - they are every ethnicity, every hair texture, every facial combination, every everything. But this isn't just about looks. It is about Jewish values and Jewish journeys, Jewish activism and artistry, Jewish geography and Jewish goals and dreams. So yes, this book is Jewish through and through in ways that shatter whatever stereotypes may exist in the minds of those within the culture and outside of it. It is a very necessary book - again for Jews and non-Jews alike. This is an encyclopedia of sorts but with emotional richness and entertaining ways of presenting facts and unknotting the tough stuff. Nothing feels forced. It all feels true to the immense nature of Jewish experiences around the world.
Both The Table of Contents and Introduction of the collective biography What Jewish Looks Like provide a road map for the way this much-needed book brings together a wide spectrum of individuals and organizations, identities and philosophies, beliefs, values, and causes. There are “Big Question” pages that add to the rich learning experience one can have with this book, no matter your own depth of involvement in all things Jewish. The authors do a good job of taking on the complexity of their topic. We are introduced to individuals and organizations in a thematic way. Tikkun Olam, for example, brings us those who are known for Repairing a Broken World. In this section alone we meet Jews from Ethopia, to Austria to Los Angeles, California. A chapter named Adam Yachid, Unique Value of Every Person, underscores the book's message of individuality and unity. The research and storytelling is robust, specific and inspiring. The artwork is vibrant and powerful. Complete with quotes, the art begs to be made into posters that one can hang in a classroom or anywhere. What Jewish Looks Like does an excellent job of recognizing the diversity within the diversity, which is all too often flattened in traditional cultural siloing of groups by race and ethnicity. Here readers get to meet Black Jews, Latiné Jews, Asian Jews, Indian Jews, Paraolympic Jews, Jews by choice and Jews by birth, Jews from every dimension of the LGBTQ+ community, Jews of every age and activists for a wide range of causes and issues.
What Jewish Looks Like accomplishes its stated mission. Yes, it shows us what Jews look like in the physical sense of the idea - they are every ethnicity, every hair texture, every facial combination, every everything. But this isn't just about looks. It is about Jewish values and Jewish journeys, Jewish activism and artistry, Jewish geography and Jewish goals and dreams. So yes, this book is Jewish through and through in ways that shatter whatever stereotypes may exist in the minds of those within the culture and outside of it. It is a very necessary book - again for Jews and non-Jews alike. This is an encyclopedia of sorts but with emotional richness and entertaining ways of presenting facts and unknotting the tough stuff. Nothing feels forced. It all feels true to the immense nature of Jewish experiences around the world.
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