Ari L. Goldman, Schocken Books, 2003
This book is a recent acquisition and a light, but valuable read. Ari Goldman, an observant journalist, formerly reporting for the New York Times and now a professor at Columbia University, details his experiences of his year of mourning following the death of his father. He divides the year into four seasons and explains how he rode the emotional rollercoaster of coming to terms with his loss, grappling with the demands of saying Kaddish and his own Jewish identity as a modern thinker. He tells us about his Shul, his frustration when the Minyan was poor, what he did when he had to travel away from home and the cathartic value of the experience. He tells us of the other ‘Kaddish zoggers’ he met during the year and how the process helped to crystallise his image of his deceased parents.
Living A Year Of Kaddish
