Have Your Say

Ultimately, YOSLY is a novel about rejection. As such, it has universal appeal since we’ve all experienced some kind of rejection: in school, at work, in relationships. The experience is painful and, when internalized, damaging to our sense of self. The resulting bitterness can stimulate fantasies of revenge. We may dream of punishing the “rejector”. Part of maturity is realizing that rejection stems from a complex variety of causes and that bitterness is just self-defeating. It would seem then, sir, that you need to mature.

So you aren’t Jewish. Get over it. You are other things. Negating or disparaging the religion to which you do not belong is racism. I want to be a fashion model. I have the right to be a fashion model. So what if I’m short and overweight? Change the standards. Otherwise, you would be discriminating against me because of an accident of birth. If I were the talented writer that you are, I could choose to write a novel attacking the beauty industry, calling it discriminatory, and demanding that it be replaced with a Harrison Bergeron society.

Imagine a different scenario for your novel. What if the pamphlets Howard brings home are from local gay clubs? What if Howard leaves Anne because he discovers that he is a homosexual and since Anne, by accident of DNA, is a woman, they are incompatible. Would Anne feel any less rejected? More importantly, would you, Mr. Burr, attack the gay community for their exclusionary practices?

Perhaps you should be aware that I, a heterosexual woman, was deeply offended by that bowling ball joke. Was that your intention?

Chani Hadad
Nof Ayalon, Israel

Chandler Burr responds:

Ms. Hadad, awash in your vast, ferocious narcissism you perceive You Or Someone Like You as a personal attack motivated by bitterness.

I understand why my raising this fundamental problem of the separatism and tribalism at Judaism’s core upsets you. The thing is, Israelis have been raising this issue, in Israel, for decades. Ha’aretz journalists and many others have pointed out, well before I did, that Israel’s citizenship laws are analogous to Hitler’s Nuremberg laws. It is Israelis who observe the racialist problem with the Law of Return and the irreconcilable tension between democracy and ethnicity-based citizenship. They are Jewish. I am not. Yet we are making the same point. Since you cannot accuse them of agreeing with me out of petty bitterness at not being Jewish, perhaps — just perhaps — they and I are talking sincerely about a real and complex problem. And if so, mature, intelligent adults would respond to the discussion rather than attacking those who discuss it.

To apply your own advice to you, it’s time to grow up.

In response to your very strange example, I believe that when one person rejects another because of sexual orientation it is idiotic prejudice, but your example supports my views, not yours; it is equally idiotic prejudice for Jews to reject non-Jews because of their race or a putative difference in their inherent moral value. Your point works against you.

As for this, “I was deeply offended by that bowling ball joke. Was that your intention?” Yes, Ms. Hadad. I wrote my entire novel with the single hope and intention of offending you with a joke. You are that important.