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Rating: 
Summary: Despite its faults, this book fills an important gap .
Review: Despite its faults--and there are many--this books opens up an important and much neglected area--how disaffected Jews relate to their own religious identity. The author is able to use humor effectively to blow up the pieties of those who cling to unexamined views of what that identity does or should consist of for themselves and others. There are a dearth of such books and Jacobson is brave for going into unchartered territiory. The problems are that Jacobson is somewhat lazy in his approach--chooses to interview at length a random set of people and fails to do background research that can place some of the views espoused in some sort of perspective. Where the book works is when he arrives in Israel and gets caught up in the lives of some vividly drawn representatives from that country. The Israeli chapters bring out what the author does best --allowing the reader to understand the nuances in his interviewees' own positions as well as the authors' own. The chapter featuring his search for his own roots in Lithunia was close to brilliant. The book badly lacks a closing chapter that is able to put the contemporary Jews dilemmma in a wider historical, literary and philosophical perspective.
Rating: 
Summary: Identity crisis
Review: Mr. Jacobson suffers from a deep-rooted identity crisis and his book could be of some use for anyone who is interested in this sort of behavior pattern. In terms of literary value "Roots Schoots" lacks intellectual depth. Mr. Jacobson is full of hate, prejudice, and uses irony, skepticism, and in many instances disrespect for the values imbedded in Jewish culture. He needs to solve his own dilemma first, free himself from whatever traumas he might have and then repeat his journey with a more open mind. Only then will he be able to judge "jewishness!"
Rating:
Summary: Identity crisis
Review: Mr. Jacobson suffers from a deep-rooted identity crisis and his book could be of some use for anyone who is interested in this sort of behavior pattern. In terms of literary value "Roots Schoots" lacks intellectual depth. Mr. Jacobson is full of hate, prejudice, and uses irony, skepticism, and in many instances disrespect for the values imbedded in Jewish culture. He needs to solve his own dilemma first, free himself from whatever traumas he might have and then repeat his journey with a more open mind. Only then will he be able to judge "jewishness!"
Rating:
Summary: Identity crisis
Review: Mr. Jacobson suffers from a deep-rooted identity crisis and his book could be of some use for anyone who is interested in this sort of behavior pattern. In terms of literary value "Roots Schoots" lacks intellectual depth. Mr. Jacobson is full of hate, prejudice, and uses irony, skepticism, and in many instances disrespect for the values imbedded in Jewish culture. He needs to solve his own dilemma first, free himself from whatever traumas he might have and then repeat his journey with a more open mind. Only then will he be able to judge "jewishness!"
Rating: 
Summary: Enlightening
Review: No hatred in this book, although plenty in the remarks of two of the on-line reviewers who are like bit part players in the book itself. Jacobson is erudite, fair, modest, compassionate and compelling. He doesn't pretend to be writing an academic investigation, more a personal journey, and he has the decency to admit that it's an inconclusive one. There is, of course, no point in spending time and money on a book like this if you lack learning and humour, of if you believe that on matters of religion and identity you already have all the answers.
Rating:
Summary: Lighten Up, Why Don't You?
Review: Roots, Schmoots: Journeys Among Jews is, first of all, funny. One should not come to it expecting to read a balanced, well-researched history/sociology of Judaism, Israel or the Diaspora. Think more along the lines of taking a long, relaxed (but neurotic as all get-out) trip with a very funny man in search of something even he can't quite identify.The chapters describing his time in the US are hilarious and poignant at once. The chapters on Israel are quite well done, capturing the author's exasperated love for the nation and its people, and his often wayward search for justice. Jacobson tries to avoid sentiment at all costs, yet continually finds himself caught up short by a lump in the throat. A very good, very funny travel book. A very good, very funny story of one person's hunt for himself. Not for the compulsively or competitively serious.
Rating:
Summary: Oh, please!
Review: Where does the man get the nerve? Can you imagine going into a country for the first time and forming an opinion of its religion, people, customs, culture and esthetics by conversations with street people, going to hangouts of the marginal in Israeli society and staying at the tackiest of hotels? As an Israeli citizen, born and raised in New York, with a healthy dose of NY culture and esthetics, I really took umbrage - did the man really find no beautiful buildings (the new Supreme Court building is georgeous, just to name one), no lovely hotels (too bad he couldn't afford the Laromme, the Dan Pearl or the new Hilton)or pretty residential areas (like the lovely old, landscaped Talbeya)? As for cultured people, why couldn't the man get thru the front door to interview Amos Oz, Yehuda Amichai or a dozen other cultured, pluristic, highly intelligent fellow authors? I notice that he changed the cover of his book - good, because his face on the old one wasn't too esthetically pleasing. Maybe the negative things he felt about Israel were just manifestations of the negative things he finds about himself. Get some therapy soon, Mr. Jacobson.
Rating:
Summary: Oh, please!
Review: Where does the man get the nerve? Can you imagine going into a country for the first time and forming an opinion of its religion, people, customs, culture and esthetics by conversations with street people, going to hangouts of the marginal in Israeli society and staying at the tackiest of hotels? As an Israeli citizen, born and raised in New York, with a healthy dose of NY culture and esthetics, I really took umbrage - did the man really find no beautiful buildings (the new Supreme Court building is georgeous, just to name one), no lovely hotels (too bad he couldn't afford the Laromme, the Dan Pearl or the new Hilton)or pretty residential areas (like the lovely old, landscaped Talbeya)? As for cultured people, why couldn't the man get thru the front door to interview Amos Oz, Yehuda Amichai or a dozen other cultured, pluristic, highly intelligent fellow authors? I notice that he changed the cover of his book - good, because his face on the old one wasn't too esthetically pleasing. Maybe the negative things he felt about Israel were just manifestations of the negative things he finds about himself. Get some therapy soon, Mr. Jacobson.
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