Reflection on Exile: Portraits of the Jewish Diaspora by Annika Hernroth-Rothstein

               I enjoyed this book about different Jewish communities around the world from Venezuela to Finland and from Uzbekistan to Morocco. The author visited different synagogues around the world and met the Jewish people who worship in them, creating a really cool book with tons of different cultures and languages and food all part of one Jewish people. One thing that stood out is that most diaspora Jews are poor. The places the author describes are often more or less ghettos and you do not find many doctors, lawyers, or other professionals. Hernroth-Rothstein draws some lessons at the end, being that:

• Orthodox communities fare better than their conservative or progressive counterparts
• A larger community is not necessarily a more vibrant community
• Religion begets religion (AKA Jews keep more traditions in majority religious countries than in atheistic countries)
• A level of isolation often benefits Jewish communities
• Diaspora Jews are connected to Israel, but that relationship is complicated
• Holocaust remembrance has both a push and pull on Jewish identity

               While I think that Hernroth-Rothstein has good points, I disagree with a few, primarily that “a level of isolation benefits Jewish communities.” Under that point she writes that, “when the Jews attempt to actively intermingle and adapt, the cultural exchange seems to only go one way—Jews adapting to the majority religion and culture and not the other way around—inevitably blurring the line between integration and assimilation.” I think the author is completely wrong here. One Jewish community she doesn’t address is the American Jewish community, which I think has a huge impact on the country. I don’t know much about others, but I know that Yiddish words, Jewish holidays, and Jewish actors have had huge impacts on American culture from the Rugrats Hannukah special to the show Seinfeld. I think that Hernroth-Rothstein tends to favor a Talmudic, rabbinic, and orthodox Judaism, and that bias comes through in the book. That said, despite those disagreements I really liked the book and would recommend it to others.