Religion Press Release Services

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 30, 2006

MEDIA CONTACT:
Myrna Baron, 212-564-6711 x301
Executive Director

Writing by Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua and a former poet laureate, Robert Pinsky, anchors the latest issue of Contemplate: The International Journal of Cultural Jewish Thought, newly released by the Center for Cultural Judaism.

Contemplate is rare among Jewish literary journals-a fairly esoteric category itself-for publishing authors from around the world, including France, Israel, and Uruguay in this issue. "Several of the pieces have never appeared in English," said Myrna Baron, Contemplate's editor. "Which is essentially our goal: to bring this excellent Jewish writing to a wider audience."

To that end, the journal is geared toward secular, freethinking Jews - a description that applies to its writers as much as its readers. "Contemplate is for Jews with a strong secular Jewish identity, who separate fact from myth and are skeptical of institutionalized Judaism that does not make that distinction," said Baron.

Indeed, studies of Jewish demographics suggest a potentially large audience for a journal of secular Jewish writing. Nearly half of American adult Jews consider themselves "secular" or "somewhat secular," according to the 2001 American Jewish Identity Survey. That makes them the largest subset of American Jews, more populous than any of the five denominations, according to Baron.

The divisions among those groups (and within them) offer fertile ground for debate, as several of the pieces show. "Contemplate takes on politics, social justice, ethics and culture," said Baron. "It looks backward, at the history and cultures of the Jews, but also at the present: how do we articulate secular Judaism's goals? How do we resolve the tensions between secular and non-secular Jews today?"

Not all of the pieces are polemical (or even political), however. First person essays by Ilan Stavans and Lucette Valensi, and several pieces that might be classified as memoir, are also included. The writing is both intellectual and-a rarity for a journal of ideas-catchy. "God let me down on a bright summer night..." begins Valensi's piece, "A Room with a View." Another piece, "Reflections on a Belated Apostasy," by Naomi Seidman, is filled with tender, novelistic details of a Brooklyn childhood that was anything but tender.

Baron's editorial eye steered her towards writing that felt both scholarly and personal, vivid and intellectual. The pieces were winnowed from hundreds of articles culled from the web, various scholarly journals, and other sundry sources. The result is, not surprisingly, hard to classify. It practically cries out for its own compound category: Jewish literary journal of ideas.

Baron hopes that eclecticism will help it stand out. That, and an obvious passion for Jewish life and culture.

"No one who has read Ilan Stavans"-who contributed an essay on his favorite Jewish literature-"disputes that he's a brilliant thinker," she said. "But you also have to appreciate that he also cares deeply about Jewish culture and literature."

Contemplate is published by the Center for Cultural Judaism, which was established in 2003 in response to emerging new insights into American Jewish demography that confirm that the majority of Jews are secular. The Center for Cultural Judaism supports educational programs on behalf of this large, underserved population. Contemplate is available through the Center at 212-564-6711 x303, online at www.culturaljudaism.org, and from selected booksellers.

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Contemplate: The International Journal of Cultural Jewish Thought
Published: April 2006
ISBN: 0-9742420-5-5, $16
The Center for Cultural Judaism
80 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
212-564-6711

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