In the mid 1990s, when 12-year-old Marty Belkin was living in Moab, Georgia, no one would have predicted he'd grow up to be a Talmud scholar. While Marty's mother Ida Mae entertained men in the house, Marty and his fraternal twin brother David would ride around on their battered Schwinn bikes, eat convenience store ice cream sandwiches, and smoke cigarettes.
When the 'Chabad of Moab' appeared in town, with a huge menorah in front, Marty recognized the candelabrum as something to do with Jews, and wondered if any Jews lived in Moab.
Marty and David soon learned that they themselves were Jews. A rabbi called Yossi Kugel came to their house, having found them by looking for Jewish-sounding names in the phone book. Much to the boys' surprise, their mom Ida Mae acknowledged that her mother was Jewish, which meant that (in Jewish law) Ida Mae and the boys were Jewish as well.
Marty and David had bar mitzvahs, and Ida Mae got a job as Rabbi Kugel's secretary.
Being a Jew was REALLY meaningful to Marty (now called Mayer), and he left Moab at the age of thirteen, to study Talmud at a top yeshiva in Brooklyn, New York.
Skip ahead almost three decades and forty-year-old Mayer is still studying Talmud....
and has been married to Sarah for eighteen years.
Sarah is the daughter of the revered Jewish Talmudist Yaakov Drezner, who arranged the marriage himself.
While Mayer was living as an Orthodox Jew, his brother David was doing the exact opposite. As a young man David used illegal drugs, stole cars, got into bar fights, slept with lots of women, contracted STDs, and more.
Afterwards, David tried various get-rich-quick schemes, all of which failed, and got into trouble with moneylenders. Now that David is forty, though, his luck has changed, and he's become wealthy from the e-cigarette business.
Forty-year-olds Mayer and David haven't seen each other for eight years when a tragedy draws them together. Their mother Ida Mae, who's 'clinically obese and two teagaritas away from a liver transplant,' commits suicide.
This incident turns Mayer's life upside-down. When Mayer flies to Georgia for his mother's funeral, a suicide letter from Ida Mae reveals that her mother was NOT Jewish, and in fact was descended from Nazis.
This means Mayer is not Jewish, Sarah is not his wife, and Sarah will be distraught when she learns she's been living with a gentile (and one-eighth Nazi) all these years. The solution: Mayer will secretly convert to Judaism. The ritual, scheduled to take place in New York in one week's time, will (presumably) ease the pain when Mayer has to confess everything to Sarah and her father.
The situation sparks an idea in David's mind. Now that Mayer is a gentile, David insists the brothers take a road trip through the South 'on their way' to New York. So Ida Mae is cremated, and Mayer, David, and Ida Mae (in an urn) embark on a kind of 'Rumspringa' jaunt through the Confederate states.
The trip is something to remember!
In Mississippi, the brothers rescue a one-eyed dog called Popeye, whom they find starving, tethered to a pole.
And in New Orleans, David's acquaintance Charlayne, an African-American social media influencer who plans to hike the Appalachian Trail, hitches a ride north.
The travelers' adventures, which range from amusing to life-threatening, lead to brotherly bonding, new friends, and Mayer learning about life outside his sheltered Orthodox community. Through it all, Mayer, though technically not Jewish, does his best to stick to Jewish laws. He won't touch a woman, even to shake hands, and he eats kosher crackers and sardines from Publix.....
......when David and Charlayne dine on cheeseburgers and sweet potato fries.
Though Mayer is uncomfortable traveling with a woman, he and Charlayne bond over their shared interest in bird-watching, and Charlayne gives Mayer helpful advice when she suggests, 'When you go back to your old-slash new life, make it a point to ask God why he did this to you.....God did this to you with full intent, and it was good intent.'
The author's descriptions of the southern flora, fauna, and geography add a nice touch to the novel, and the ancillary characters - including a white supremacist called Clete and a woman rabbi named Debbie Teitelbaum - are authentic and compelling.
One of my favorite characters is Popeye the dog, who turns out to be a hero.
You don't need to be Jewish to enjoy the novel, though you might want to Google some of the terms. I would have liked a little more resolution at the end of the story, but that's a minor quibble. This is a very good book, highly recommended.
Thanks to Netgalley, Reuven Fenton, and Central Avenue Publishing for a copy of the book.
Rating: 4 stars
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