This is a story of goy meets girl, and of what happens when a couple in their 20s takes on a complex faith in its 6000s. Laugh-out-loud funny, thoughtful and revealing, Jew and Improved is Errett’s take on joining an ancient tribe and dragging his fiancée along for the ride.
When Benjamin Errett proposed to his longtime girlfriend, Sarah, he decided to go the distance by converting to Judaism. This engaging book follows Ben and Sarah’s education in spirituality, community and gefilte fish when the couple was pretty sure they already had all those things figured out. But more than that, it’s a love story about the ordinary things that happen after you make an extraordinary choice. It’s about making a big change in your life for someone else and realizing that you were doing it for yourself all along.
Jew and Improved is a book about a spiritual journey for people who don’t read books about spiritual journeys; it’s a primer on a major world religion and an answer to all those embarrassing questions about circumcision. And who doesn’t love a book that features both a wedding and a recipe for brisket?
For most of my life, I was quite happy to be unemployed, spiritually speaking. But when Sarah and I got engaged, I decided joining her tribe was the right thing to do. Beyond that slogan for Quaker Oats, I couldn’t quite articulate why I wanted to do this. Sure, it made her parents happy, but I’d like to think I had them onside from the beginning. I knew I was searching for something, though I had no clear idea what that something was.
—From Jew and Improved