It’s a Whole Spiel
Book: It’s a Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes, and Other Jewish Stories edited by Katherine Locke and Laura Silverman
Synopsis:
A Jewish boy falls in love with a fellow counselor at summer camp. A group of Jewish friends take the trip of a lifetime. A girl meets her new boyfriend’s family over Shabbat dinner. Two best friends put their friendship to the test over the course of a Friday night. A Jewish girl feels pressure to date the only Jewish boy in her grade. Hilarious pranks and disaster ensue at a crush’s Hanukkah party.
From stories of confronting their relationships with Judaism to rom-coms with a side of bagels and lox, It’s a Whole Spiel features one story after another that says yes, we are Jewish, but we are also queer, and disabled, and creative, and political, and adventurous, and anything we want to be. You will fall in love with this insightful, funny, and romantic Jewish anthology from a collection of diverse Jewish authors.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
My Thoughts: This book exemplifies what it means to book Jewish. The collection of stories covers everything from not feeling Jewish enough to what it’s like to live a life where Friday night and Saturday mean disconnecting from the outside world and enjoying your Shabbat bubble. I loved how even though there were different levels of observance in each story, nobody was ashamed to be Jewish. I loved that even when characters felt insecure in their Jewishness, by the end of the short story they only found assurance and acceptance. I loved how I could find a piece of myself in every story — even the ones about hetero relationships or the ones centered around a male main character — because this is simply a book of Jewish stories.
The only thing I wanted to see more of (both in this book and in Jewish lit in general, but that’s a whole discussion in itself) were reform or conservative characters who do Shabbat dinners and know about holidays beyond Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur/Passover/Hanukkah and maybe even keep kosher to some degree but aren’t shomer Shabbos or whatever else is at that boundary between conservative and orthodox. We seem to miss a lot of that middle ground in Jewish lit.
If you want to read a bunch of Jewish stories too then you can buy It’s a Whole Spiel here or borrow it from your local library.
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