Holy Unexpected: My New Life as a Jew

by Robin Chotzinoff

Book Overview

Raised a born-again agnostic, Robin Chotzinoff had no interest in religion--and practically no experience in it-- until she turned forty. When she suddenly discovered a belief in God, she had no idea... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1586485024
• ISBN13: 9781586485023
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Length: 218 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.8" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Informal, inviting and informative

I picked up this book because I was attracted by the cover. I don't read a lot of "narratives" but Robin was able to combine a juicy story and lots of factual information about Judaism, Denver, and her life so it kept all the areas of my brain highly entertained. She skips around a lot and goes on tangents in the chapters - but in a way that's highly enjoyable and keeps you focused on her thought process. I liked that she didn't continuously focus on herself, she would jump out of her own story and go on a tangent about another interesting individual. I'm a slow reader, but I couldn't put this down. I knocked it off much quicker than other books I've read lately. I loved that I had no idea where the book was going and what was going to happen. I wish I had have read this before my trip to Denver two weeks ago, otherwise I would have tried to find the places (Judaica stores) she talks about. Oh, and I found a few editorial mistakes. Sometimes she would explain things twice, like how Rabbi Jamie was highed at the new Rabbi for her shul, it was sort of like having a conversation with an Alzheimer's patient, I just smiled and kept reading. But other than that, it was very well written.

A great read by a fantastic author

If you have not yet read any of Chotzinoff's books, you should. She tells a serious story (religious transformation) with wit and makes any reader comfortable to read it. My father, like Robin's, is a 'devout atheist." I connected with this book. She writes about tracing her Jewish ancestry, watching her daughters and husband become Jewish, and watching her father die, all the while letting us in on her inner thoughts of why she is converting. She's humble about this journey and doesn't make the reader feel like they have to conform. But, by the end of it, you'll be leaning more towards Judaism than you were before. Great book and smooth read.

Unsentimental Journey

Religious awakening as the basis of a memoir presents certain difficulties, particularly in our New Age world corrupted by trendy enlightenment and celebrity seers. But Robin Chotzinoff avoids any touchy-feely riffs in this witty, engaging account of how she, the product of a quirky and privileged yet ultimately dysfunctional upbringing in New York, embraced the spirituality underpinning her Jewish heritage. Her journey, punctuated by forays into sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll (not to mention binging on Oreos and the occasional obsessive romance), brings her to a synagogue in a Colorado mountain town, where first her daughter and then she adopt Judaism at their respective bat mitzvahs. Guided in her training by fellow author and congregant Joanne Greenberg ("I Never Promised You a Rose Garden"), whose practical wisdom is neatly juxtaposed with the wisecracks of Chotzinoff's ailing father (a onetime journalist and lifelong atheist and bon vivant), Chotzinoff delivers her tale of conversion in a funny, self-deprecating, yet thoroughly self-aware manner that takes faith off a pedestal and puts it -- where else? -- on the Sabbath table, in the conjugal bed, and, finally and triumphantly, in the author's weary yet resilient heart.

rite of passage

I disagree with the "tad tedious" review. I just finished this book and felt uplifted by Robin's honesty about her transitions through life. The book is well-written -- her ability to intertwine her struggle with her own identity and religous hunger with her dad's illness is amazing. I hope to read more books by her.

An exodus from rootlessness

Nobody plans to stumble across God in an unexpected place, least of all someone who doesn't believe in God at all. But when writer Robin Chotzinoff realized 40 years into her life that she simply wasn't a very convincing atheist, there were no thunderclaps, just a warm winter rain, no cyclone but a soft Chinook wind. God was inside her, where she least expected to find him. Chotzinoff's "Holy Unexpected: My New Life as a Jew" is one woman's religious journey, but without the proselytizing or solemn moralizing. In fact, it's just about what you might expect from the daughter of a Catholic mother and a Jewish father who didn't put much stock in God: Not irreverent, but certainly not somber. It's a story about a journey as much as a destination. Chotzinoff's mid-life spiritual awakening is alternately tender and surprisingly funny. A gifted writer, reporter and dreamer with two previous nonfiction books and numerous articles, she gracefully draws meaning from simple moments. A childhood debate over the relative importance of being Hercules vs. Jesus. The propriety of praying while snowboarding. How to observe the Sabbath on Saturday but still go to Wal-Mart for duct tape. Resting her head on her dead father's arm moments after his last breath. You needn't speak Yiddish to understand exactly what's in her heart. "Holy Unexpected" is also populated with unique characters from the author's life who illustrate the kaleidoscopic spectrum of religious exploration, from faithless to faithful. It's a memoir, but there's little arrogance or ego on display. The sensitivity of this memoir is in its cast as much as its poetic rendering of an ancient faith, race, culture or whatever you believe Judaism to be. And at a time when Jewishness lies deep in the heart of the heart of a great conflict that's not-so-casually been labeled World War III, "Holy Unexpected" slices through the frustrating dialectics, obscure and misinterpreted ideologies, the wailing walls of prejudice, and fanatic manifestos fired like Katyushas from an increasingly radicalized Middle East. Chotzinoff's personal story is a different kind of exodus, a journey from rootlessness to belonging that many of us - Jewish, Christian or Muslim - make in our lives.