The Jewish me loves Jewishness, and even before graduating as a rabbi from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, education was my passion. My ordination (Semicha) identified me as both teacher and judge. However, I was never motivated to adjudicate aspects of Halacha (Jewish law), but I did believe that I could judge my own Jewish identity within the expansive landscape of multiple Judaisms.
Jewish me is passionate about my rabbinic label and liberated to judge the content. If I can be a Jewish me, then you can be a Jewish you. Indeed, my readers can embrace Jewishness by discovering mindfulness in this handbook, as a Jew or non-Jew.
Using storytelling and perspectives more related to Jewish peoplehood than religious dogma, this handbook as a primer, can be read as a totality to gain an overview of Jewish identity or as individual chapters for insights into a particular topic.
-Howard I. Bogot, Rydal Park, Rydal, PA, 2018