(idea submitted and written by Danielle L.)
Such a Nice Jewish Boy!
Jewish Young Adults take a certain pride or satisfaction when another JYA succeeds in something. Whether it’s parting the sea, curing Polio, or winning an Oscar, we like to brag about it.
Non-JYA: “Did you hear, the Coen brothers won an Oscar?”
JYA: “Please, my second cousin lives in Ethan’s building on the Upper West.”
One JYA who has definitely earned bragging rights is best-selling author Jonathan Safran Foer. Not only is his being Jewish something to talk about, but his writing often deals with Judaism. His first book, Everything is Illuminated, is about an angst-riddled JYA who goes on a Jewish heritage tour to find out more about his grandfather’s past. The book earned Foer a National Jewish Book Award, and was adapted into a movie in 2005.
Foer has also written Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, about a nine-year-old boy who lost his father in the terrorist attacks of 9/11. As well as a nonfiction, Eating Animals, and most recently Tree of Codes, which is a book that has taken apart the book Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schultz (another Jewish author) and rearranged the words into a new story.
As a best-selling author and a frequent writer for the Op-Ed column in the New York Times, Foer has become one of the most successful JYA’s around, and a frequent subject of Jewish Geography.
