A Baptist Among the Jews [Hardcover]

Mary Blye Howe (Author), Lawrence Kushner (Rabbi) (Afterword), John Wilson (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0787965588 | ISBN-13: 978-0787965587 | Publication Date: July 25, 2003 | Edition: 1

Like most Christians, Mary Blye Howe was uninformed about Jewish ritual and tradition. To satisfy her curiosity she joined a Jewish study group held in the home of a Hasidic rabbi. A Baptist Among the Jews is Howe's first-person account of her eye-opening experience of studying with that welcoming group and how this experience led her to a deeper, richer relationship with her God. While learning about the traditions of Judaism and studying the Torah, Howe discovered a new world of worship and ritual that expanded her experience to include several different Jewish groups, among them Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox. She reveled in the joys of arguing with God (even though God always wins), synagogue-hopping on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, and dancing with a sefer torah through the streets of Dallas. Page after page, we join Howe on her religious quest and discover how her once-narrow concept of God has expanded with her ability to read the scriptures and understand this new faith. Howe's profound and transforming experiences helped her develop a new sense of worship— one that eschews spectatorship in favor of participation.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

No religious group has angered American Jews more than Southern Baptists, whose leaders have repeatedly launched initiatives to convert Jews to Christianity. Howe, a practicing Southern Baptist, had no such intention when she joined a Jewish philosophy study group. Soon her interest in Judaism led her to Orthodox, Conservative and Reform services, to holy day celebrations and a Torah retreat, and to Hasidic and Jewish Renewal study groups. As she befriended Jews of all persuasions, from fervent Hasids to a vibrant female rabbi, Howe found herself in a "love affair with Judaism," reveling in its dedication to study, passion for God, sense of divine mystery and "wild and joyful" celebrations. Though the book is based on Howe's personal experience, it is also rich in description and reflection as she looks at women in Judaism, historic and contemporary Hasidism and her own expanding view of God. In the end, in spite of hoping that she has a Jewish soul, Howe remains a Baptist: "Were I to become a Jew, I feel I'd have to throw myself heart and soul into that faith tradition, when what I want in my life right now is to throw myself heart and soul into experiencing God in as many ways as I can." Can a Baptist successfully portray contemporary Jewish life and worship? Evangelical Christian editor John Wilson, in the foreword, and Reform Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, in the afterword, believe Howe has done so, and each recommends the book to his own community.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

No religious group has angered American Jews more than Southern Baptists, whose leaders have repeatedly launched initiatives to convert Jews to Christianity. Howe, a practicing Southern Baptist, had no such intention when she joined a Jewish philosophy study group. Soon her interest in Judaism led her to Orthodox, Conservative and Reform services, to holy day celebrations and a Torah retreat, and to Hasidic and Jewish Renewal study groups. As she befriended Jews of all persuasions, from fervent Hasids to a vibrant female rabbi, Howe found herself in a "love affair with Judaism," revealing in its dedication to study, passion for God, sense of divine mystery and "wild and joyful" celebrations. Though the book is based on Howe's personal experience, it is also rich in description and reflection as she looks at women in Judaism, historic and contemporary Hasidism and her own expanding view of God. In the end, in spite of hoping that she has a Jewish soul, Howe remains a Baptist: "Were I to become a Jew, I feel I'd have to throw myself heart and soul into that faith tradition, when what I want in my life right now is to throw myself heart and soul into experiencing God in as many ways as I can." Can a Baptist successfully portray contemporary Jewish life and worship? Evangelical Christian editor John Wilson, in the forward, and Reform Rabbi Lawrence Kushner,m in the afterword, believe Howe has done so, and each recommends the book to his own community. (Aug.) (Publishers Weekly, May 26, 2003)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 203 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (July 25, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787965588
• ISBN-13: 978-0787965587
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,854,463 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Generous Heart and a Serious Mind, August 26, 2003

By 

Stephen R. Heller "Zola" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Baptist Among the Jews (Hardcover)

Mary Blye Howe's spiritual memoir offers a snapshot of a remarkable period in the life of the Dallas Jewish community. Long a bastion of southern liberal Judaism, in the 1970s Dallas came close to losing its aging, traditional Jewish community for good. But in the second half of the 1980s, an unprecedented interest in traditional Judaism emerged which in turn fueled a trans-denominational revival of adult Jewish education. Mary Blye Howe found herself a part of the Dallas Jewish community in the second half of the 1990s when the interest in adult Jewish education was in full swing. Thus, her account of attending Jewish study groups and multiple synagogues of every possible affiliation, offers a snapshot of a southern Jewish community in transformation, making it an interesting work for religious historians, too. Her experience would have been very different if she had begun her exploration a mere 10 years earlier.

The Dallas Jewish community is fortunate to have an outside observer and friend like Mary Blye Howe. She comes to the subject with a remarkably open heart and profound curiosity that is as engaging as it is rare. Avoiding even a whiff of pedantry, she is able to conjure up many of the quirky and intriguing personalities she meets, all of whom have lessons that she is eager to understand and experience. She is the embodiment of the Rabbinic maxim: Who is wise? One who learns from everyone.

Mary comes to her work in a Christian spirit informed by a love of Bible, Judaism and the modern discipline of anthropology. But as the title suggests, it will be Christian readers who determine the ultimate merit of the work. For 2000 years, Jews and Christians have endured a weary truce in which Jews have remained content as tolerated, silent partners at best. That Christians are noticing Jews qua Jews again (as they did in the 16th century and again in the 18th century) suggests that we are living in a spiritual space of remarkable possibilities. Mary's attempt to fully appreciate Jewishness from within a commited but curious Christian framework is, I suspect, a part of that larger spiritual movement, one that connects American Jews and Christians and ultimately all of us in a larger network in which serious religious spirits search for the living cores of their respective traditions.

Judaism dwells silently at the heart of Christianity and Mary shows how to tune into it without sacrificing the profundity of her own Christianity. It is this Jews opinion that Jews woulddo well to learn from Mary how to understand the living heart of Christianity, the other religious tradition to which Judaism is most closely and deeply connected.

As the late enlightenment, with its excessive focus on history and impersonal forces, gradually passes away and the search for wisdom, religious and philosophical, comes to occupy a place of honor in the west, a serious spiritual memoir like Mary reveals how we can go about trying to understand one another in serious ways: through encounters that are respectful, joyous, rooted in learning and filled with the possibilities of self-discovery rooted in the search for wisdom. Mary's profound tolerance, curiosity, optimism and capacity for joy make ideal guides.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A terrific read . . ., August 27, 2003

By 

Karen J. Prager (Plano, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Baptist Among the Jews (Hardcover)

A Baptist among the Jews is an exuberant, uplifting, and inspiring read for all of us who have found ourselves embarking on a spiritual journey. Mary Howe reveals her excellent grounding in Jewish belief and practice without ever straying far from her own personal experiences. This is one of those rare books that not only engages and absorbs but educates as well. I highly recommend it.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not Exactly a Baptist Among the Jews, September 6, 2005

By 

Jennifer Smith (California, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Baptist Among the Jews (Hardcover)

A Baptist Among the Jews is a great starter book for Christians interested in almost all forms of Judaism. The only 'denomination' she leaves out is Reconstructionism, explaining that this is because she had no access to it.

Howe takes the reader through study groups, Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform synagogue services, Torah retreats, and even spends time explaining her experiences with Chabad Jews, who are known for their black coats, fedoras, and their loyalty to a particular rabbi. By the time the reader finishes A Baptist Among the Jews he or she will have a lot of positive, in depth information about modern Jewish thought.

On the other hand (there's always another hand, isn't there?), the title leads one to believe that Howe is a conservative, born-again Christian (The Baptist part of the title) who is transformed through her experiences with some Jewish people. She is actually a pretty liberal Christian who enjoys "re-imagin[ing] scripture."

She attends and lauds a feminine re-imagining of a Passover seder with a Haggadah written from a feminist perpective, and says on page 102, "In my not-so-distant past, I, along with the churches I attended, feared seeing God as feminine, even while we hurried to add that God was not male. Translations of scripture that used feminine - or even inclusive - pronouns angered us because we believed that this was somehow changing God. No one, however, is changing God. We're merely expanding our *images* of God."

I am not saying anything is wrong with this, I am merely saying that the title of the book is disingenuous to portray the author as a Baptist-- The Baptist denomination takes the Bible literally, does not allow women in positions of power over men, they cannot be pastors, and they have spoken out against gender-inclusive languge in the Bible. Howe states several times in the book that she has belonged to several churches, each different from the last, and I did not get the impression that more than one of them was Baptist or even conservative. I could be wrong; that is just the impression I get.


I enjoyed this book - the writing is clear and the author is not overly wordy or bombastic. She writes almost like a reporter, weaving facts in with interesting personal stories. The only pet peeve I have is that she consistently says, "The Jews," rather than "some Jews," or "Jewish group." She says things like, "When I study with the Jews..." "..worshipping with the Jews..." as though there are about 20 of them. Most Jews are secular and do not study Torah or follow halakha, so the term "the Jews" felt weird when I read it every time. I don't think she would have said, "When I studied with the Baptists," or "When I worshiped with the Mormons," since it makes it sound like they are part of some little group that meets in a clubhouse once a week. Anyway, it just struck me as odd.