Some Background

A character in the novel says being Jewish is like The Eagles’ Hotel California—You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. In recent years, I’ve felt like checking out of being Jewish as a result of the genocide carried out by descendants of the victims of another genocide, the unaccountable defense of Israel’s inhumane actions by the American Jewish establishment, and the absurd accusations of antisemitism leveled against people critical of what’s happening in Gaza. Besides, I’d long ago abandoned my belief in the God of the Old Testament. Despite my years as a yeshiva student and living in Israel, I wondered what Jewishness remained in me and what it consisted of. I realized I could check out, but never leave because I can no more renounce being a Jew than I can renounce the color of my skin.

That got me thinking of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, who is made to renounce his religion. Who was Shylock the Jew when he was no longer a Jew? I wrote a story (posted earlier on Substack—you can now read it here) about Jessica, Shylock’s daughter, who ditches her father and religion to run off to join the fun crowd. In the story, her marriage to Lorenzo is a bust. Despite her conversion, she remains a Jew in the eyes her husband and his friends, and she belatedly comprehends why her father clung so stubbornly to his Jewish identity. What choice did he have? She learned that you can check out but you can’t leave. In this she was like those assimilated European Jews in the 1930s and 40s, who found that although they didn’t regard themselves as Jews, the Nazis had no trouble recognizing them as such.

The Best of Times grew out of that short story, and in the novel the role of identity—not just religious but racial, ethnic and sexual—is the central theme in the intertwined lives of the characters. Through the novel, I attempted to make sense of events roiling the world and at the same time, escape them by losing myself in a fictional world over which I had some control. I hope readers will find meaning and pleasure in this tale, and find it a congenial companion in the current moment, which is anything but the best of times.