The best selling non fiction book in the USA this week is Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern
Some people have asked me, "So... are they Jewish?" So.. to save you the pleasure of reading the book, my answer is that his father, Sam Halpern, identifies as Jewish. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061992704/sefersafarianonl The synopsis is as follows. Justin grew up in San Diego as the youngest son of Sam Halpern, a doctor and cancer researcher at UCSD. His father was blunt, direct, obscene, frightening, hilarious, but endearing. Justin moved back to San Diego and asked to move back in with his parents. While he was blogging for maxim magazine and trying to be a screenwriter, he lived with his mother and retired father, and began posting one of his father's funny sayings or comments each day. 50 friends followed the comments, then 500, then 100,000, and now 1.4 million. There was this book deal, and now a tv pilot starring William Shatner as a character based on the father. In the book, you read about Xmas gifts, how Justin's mother grew up poor in an Italian American Catholic family, how she was orphaned as a young teen, and how his father grew up in rural Boone County Kentucky as the son of a sharecropper, who later owned and managed the tobacco farm on which he worked.... Jewish ? ummmm... yes. His father identifies as Jewish, although Justin was raised without any speciifc religious practices or heritage, although his mother did send him to a San Diego Jewish class for the children of mixed-religion families. Justin lasted 3 sessions. Hehe. Also, when selecting a doctor, Justin's father (page 106) does instruct his son to pick a doctor with a Jewish sounding last name. When Justin says that he is racist for saying that, Sam replies. well.. I can't repeat the choice words he uses, but suffice it to say that he likes Jewish doctors and reminds his son that he is a Jewish doctor Larry MyJewishBooks.com --- Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: hasaf...@osu.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
