Book Review: Doublelife By Harold And Gayle Berman

NOTE: I was not paid to review this book. It is an unbiased and objective review. If you have a book with Jewish or Israel At first, when I initially received the book, I did not quite know what to expect. I thought it would be some cheesy story how an intermarried couple found Judaism or it would be a book about how intermarriage is so bad. While all that might be true, I almost found it difficult, initially, to pick up the book as I did not feel the need to read a book against intermarriage; it does not seem to be such an urgent or pressing matter to me. It is to the Jewish world at large, but I thought how interesting would I find such a book.

It turns out that that is not what DoubleLife is about. As soon as I picked it up, I had a hard time putting it down. DoubleLife is both an easy read and a story that draws you in. (It did take me a while to finish it, but that is despite the book being an easy read - more because I don't have much reading time available and generally am reading 2-3 The Berman's story is told through a series of letters to each other. I do not know if they lived their life this way - sending actual letters to each other and these are those letters, or if it is just the style in which they chose to write the book. I like the style - there is a certain intimacy that can be found underlying in the tone of the letters that makes this different than a normal retelling of a story.

The book describes their life together, from when they met on a blind date, over a span of about 21 years. The bulk of the book is really the first 12-14 years, with the final pages being the final 6-8 years.

The book goes into great detail how they dealt with many of the issues that are common in interfaith couples, and they did not see religion as a issue, how they decided to approach the religion issue in their upcoming marriage, what they would do about children and the issue of two religions or one or none. Interestingly, despite their careers being largely within church walls, Gayle embraces [non-Orthodox] Judaism and Harold slowly but surely finds himself looking for more meaning within his Judaism.

DoubleLife takes the reader on the journey of Harold exploring his Judaism, with Gayle following along at her own speed, as they go from Reform temples to Conservative shuls and eventually to Orthodox shuls and communities and eventual conversion. The book does leave one wanting more. I had a lot of questions. there is a lot left out of the story - especially in the later part of the book as Gayle starts to consider conversion - I would have liked to know more of what she thought of the various mitzvos they started to keep along the way, usually led by Harold taking things on and then letting her know, how they decided to make aliyah to Israel (not even mentioned in the book), being non-Jewish while being thought of as a Jew and the conflicts that surely arose out of it, as well as other gaps that are in the story.. My only thought on that is that DoubleLife is more the story of the journey of an interfaith couple finding their way to Judaism and less the story of how they dealt with the details of Judaism. Maybe that can be the topic of another book!

Their story of finding Judaism was not the story of intellectual arguments, proving the church wrong, proving the Old Testament right. As a matter of fact, now that I think of it, they decided to reject Christianity almost out of hand, and they do not spend any time in the book criticizing Christianity or explaining what was wrong with it and why they chose Judaism. Despite their early rejection of Christianity, they did not embrace Judaism, at least not more than the cultural Judaism, so quickly. There is far more critique of the ambivalence of Reform Jews and of the lack of commitment of Conservative Jews than any actual critique of Christianity. Nor was it the story of being pulled in by one specific facet of Judaism or another. It is the story of a process they went through, how different events in their lives triggered the search for meaning and how they found that meaning by taking on themselves more and more Judaism, at times even creating conflict between them. One might say this is the story of their metamorphosis from being cultural Jews to being practicing Jews.

Don't read DoubleLife to learn the arguments against intermarriage, or to become convinced why the non-Jewish spouse in an interfaith marriage should convert. Read DoubleLife because it is a fascinating and enchanting tale of how an interfaith couple dealt with the challenges inherent in their relationship and found their path in life.

You can get DoubleLife from:

* Amazon: 11.69 (Kindle Edition for 4.99)
* Book Depository: 12.99 (free shipping)

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NOTE: I was not paid to review this book. It is an unbiased and objective review. If you have a book with Jewish or Israel

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