Brace Yourself, Philadelphia Film Lovers!

On January 26th, I’ll be meeting up with John Scalzi, the author of The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies, at Germ Books + Gallery, which we’re led to believe is in a very hip part of town and is itself a very happening place. For where else would Scalzi join with the author of The Stewardess Is Flying the Plane to discuss great (and not so great) science fiction movies of the ’70s? As he told his fans:

“The plan at the moment is to have the two of us blab at each other for a while and then open up the floor to questions, comments, and spontaneous dance routines from the audience. But you never do know. Hey, it’s a live appearance! Anything could happen. And both Ron and I are smartass know-it-alls, so I expect this to be fun. At the very least we’ll amuse ourselves.”

So come on and help us fill up the bookstore—and if you don’t actually live in Philly, but you have friends who do, well, tell them to come see us!

6 January 2006 | events |

Author2Author: Fiona Rosenbloom & Ruth Andrew Ellenson

I was a fan of The Modern Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt even before I met the anthology’s editor, Ruth Andrew Ellenson, at a reading at Mo Pitkin’s last fall, so when Fiona Rosenbloom’s YA novel, You Are SO Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah!, landed in my review pile, I emailed Ruthie (we’d been writing back and forth by then, and bonded over lunch with Mrs. Beatrice, who was equally charmed) and told her I’d found a perfect Author2Author partner. Luckily, Fiona was up for it, too, and here’s the first half of their conversation.

Fiona Rosenbloom: There are a lot of really interesting things revealed in this anthology, but the most interesting, to me at least, is revealed in the introduction. Judaism is passed along matrilineal lines, and while your father is a rabbi, your mother converted to Judaism, making you, the editor of this Jewish anthology of guilt, technically not Jewish. So, before we get into Guilt, I thought I’d ask you if your definition of Judaism runs counter to this belief. How do you identify with Judaism? And do you even subscribe to the matrilineal blood-line belief? Is Judaism, for you, a personal choice?

Ruth Andrew Ellenson: It’s a interesting question and one I’ve dealt with in various ways. I’m probably in a extremely small club: rabbi’s daughters who are also Daughters of the American Revolution.

Just to clarify, I am Jewish because not only did my mother convert, my father actually had me converted as an infant in an ultra Orthodox ceremony. So hallachicly, according to Jewish law, I’m as kosher as they come. I grew up in a very rich intellectual Jewish world, where identity was discussed frequently and it never entered into the conversation that I wasn’t part of that world. To answer your question directly: No, I never felt Judaism was a choice; it was absolutely, definitively who I was and am. I was also lucky to spend much of childhood around the Havurah movement of the 1970s, which emphasized new ways to approach Judaism and Jewish identity. When my parents were married, I think my mother’s identity as a convert was seen an exotic. Here was a former beauty queen with a Southern accent who had lived on a kibbutz and spoke Hebrew. Not too many of those on the Upper West Side.

(more…)

4 January 2006 | author2author |