Judith Magyar Isaacson

After reading the the brief autobiographical excerpt from Judith Magyar Isaacson, I want you to think about and answer ONE (you can address more, but don't feel obligated to do so) of the following questions:

1. On page 150 Isaacson mentions "Yom Kippur Jews." What does she mean? What would be the equivalent in your own tradition?

2. "I prayed. But to a god I no longer trusted" (252). This quote seems to encapsulate a feeling we all have at one time or another. For the Jewish people, I think this feeling takes on particular weight in light of the Babylonian Exile, constant persecution, the Holocaust, etc. When great and inexplicable tragedy befalls us, our family, or our world, how can we still muster faith and trust in a loving, all powerful, all knowing God? How can Jews do this using the template(s) of the Covenant we discussed in class?

3. When discussing her still unfinished memoir with her daughter, Isaacson says "I seem to owe it to the dead" (261). Her daughter responds "You owe it to the living" (ibid.) . What does each mean?

4. What was the most shocking part of Isaacson's memoir and why?


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