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Figures of Conversion: "The Jewish Question" and English National Identity (review)

About halfway into the memoir the story becomes an intriguing mystery as Louise like a detective tries to trace her father's past. Much to her surprise-because she was brought up in a non-religious, indeed, antireligious, household-she discovers after his death that her father was a Russian Jew whose family of origin perished in the Holocaust. From this she concludes that much of her father's inexplicable behavior can be traced to the guilt he felt over having abandoned his own parents. In a seeming act of reconciliation she then officially converts to Judaism and goes on with her life. The book is fascinating and reads like a novel, but its conclusion is psychologically unconvincing. There is no logical or psychological connection between having lost one's parents in the Holocaust and having to deny one's Jewishness, on the one hand, and becoming a tyrant to one's children, on the other. To the contrary, some survivors with similar pasts became strong Jews and doting parents. Neither does Louise's becoming a Jew seem like reconciliation with her monstrous father. It seems like something much better and healthier: her becoming a Jew is a denial of his whole life including his self-hatred and cruelty. like many writers of memoirs, Louise presides over a just retribution for a cruel past. Robert Melson Department of Political Science Purdue University