Leaving Home
TENZER, HEATHER
Leaving Home With Roots in Heaven—One Woman's Passionate Journey Into the Heart of Her Faith Tirzah Firestone New York: Penguin Putnam, 1998. 348 pp. hardcover S13.95 REVIEWED BY HEATHER...
...Firestone's story is painful because the decisions she made divorced her from her family (who recited kaddish when she intermarried) and from Orthodoxy...
...Heather Tenzer is editorial associate at Moment...
...With the embers of the revolutionary '60s still flickering, Firestone cast off what she regarded as the claustrophobic yoke of her dogmatic religious upbringing...
...hardcover S13.95 REVIEWED BY HEATHER TENZER The daughter of middle-class Orthodox parents, Firestone left home at 21 on a spiritual journey across Europe, through the backwoods of Minnesota, and into alternative religions and philosophies...
...Her years of religion-shopping had primed her for acceptance of a new perspective on Judaism—that of centuries-old kabbalah mixed with modern Jewish social concerns...
...She traded her sheitel (wig), patriarchal constructions of God, and black hat husband for Kundalini yoga, a Christian minister husband, and, finally, a Jewish Renewal ordination...
...Firestone will surely vex some readers with her postmodern ideals, but she will inspire others with a tale of bravery and devotion to her own path...
...This is her story...
Vol. 25 • February 2000 • No. 1
