September 19, 2009
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A New Year's Prayer...
Slouching
Towards Kristen
Jerusalem Post Interview
with Charles Krauthammerby Hilary Leilea Krieger, JPost Correspondent, Washington
Krauthammer, a columnist for The Washington Post, is a winner of the Irving Kristol award.
Jerusalem Post, June 10, 2009:
Can you talk a little bit about your own Jewish upbringing and sense of Jewishness, and how that influences you? I assume it's a factor in this particular project.
I grew up in a Modern Orthodox home [in Montreal]. I went to Jewish day school right through high school, so half of my day was spent speaking Hebrew from age six to 16. I studied thousands of hours of Talmud. My father thought I didn't get enough Talmud at school, so I took the extra Talmud class at school and he had a rabbi come to the house three nights a week. One of those nights was Saturday night, so in synagogue Saturday morning my brother and I would pray very hard for snow so he wouldn't be able to come on Saturday night and we could watch hockey night in Canada. That's where I learned about prayer.
That didn't seem to you to be a prayer that was likely to go unanswered?
Yeah, I was giving it a shot to see what side God was on.
And what did you determine?
It rarely snowed.
************************************
More on Krauthammer's Canadian childhood:
"His parents were Orthodox and sent him to
Hebrew day school. He also took
private Gomorrah lessons twice a week."-- "Charles Krauthammer: Prize Writer,"
by Mitchell Bard************************************
Also in the Jerusalem Post interview:
.... What, then, did you mean by a Jewish sensibility?
".... In literature it's an interesting question, what's a Jewish novel?"
My Prayer:
Private Gomorrah lessons
with Kristen.Background:
"Heaven Can Wait"
at Haaretz.comHappy Rosh Hashanah
(and Gemara).Update, 5:01 AM Sept. 19
Before becoming a writer,
Krauthammer was, his
Washington Post biography says,
a resident and then chief resident
in psychiatry at
Massachusetts General Hospital.Related Metaphors
This morning's New York Times:
MicheleBachmann.com this morning:
See also:
James Hillman's "acorn theory"
of personality development
(yesterday's entry).
