September 26, 7 pm: DadWagon Presents: Theodore Ross.

Join Theodore Ross for a reading from his new book, Am I a Jew?, recently published by Hudson Street Press.

“I was nine years old when my mother forced me to convert to Christianity…”

Theodore Ross was nine years old when he moved with his mother from New York City to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Once there his mother decided, for both personal and spiritual reasons, to have her family pretend not to be Jewish. Theodore went to an Episcopal school, where he studied the Bible, sang in the choir, and even took communion. Later, as an adult, he wondered: Am I still Jewish?

Seeking an answer, Ross travels around the country and to Israel, visiting a wide variety of Jewish communities. From “Crypto-Jews” in New Mexico and secluded ultra-devout Orthodox towns in upstate New York to a rare Classical Reform congregation in Kansas City, Theodore tries to understand himself by experiencing the diversity of Judasim.

Quirky and self-aware, introspective and impassioned, Am I a Jew? is a story about the universal struggle to define a relationship (or lack thereof) with religion.