CBST featured in Far From Zion: In Search of a Global Jewish Community by Charles London
A fascinating narrative of community, identity, and faith, Charles London’s Far From Zion: In Search of a Global Jewish Community explores the Jewish Diaspora in some of the most unexpected places - from Burma to Tehran to Cuba and even Bentonville, Arkansas - and at CBST during the High Holy Days.
The award-winning author of the highly acclaimed One Day the Soldiers Came, London had grown up without much connection to Judaism or the Jewish people. As a gay man in a committed interfaith relationship, he didn't feel he had a place in organized Judaism and, like many of his generation on the left, he had always tried to avoid the subject of Israel altogether.
But, after his grandmother passed away and a hidden piece of her Jewish identity came to light, he felt compelled to find his own place in the vast continuum of the Jewish people. In Far From Zion , he travels the world to find far flung Jewish communities who are forging their identities in surprising and challenging ways, telling the stories of the Jews who chose to remain in the countries of their birth, often in spite of tremendous pressure to flee. The search takes him around the world, from a lonely synagogue in Rangoon, to rural hill of eastern Uganda, to "Ahmadinejad's Mosque" in Iran, and to his first High Holiday services with his partner at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in New York . At once a riveting modern history of a scattered People of the Book, a grappling with modern Zionism, and London’s moving story of his own personal odyssey of religious and cultural discovery, Far From Zion is an affecting and unforgettable study of diversity, tenacity, survival, and rebirth.
Available now at http://farfromzion.com/ .
A Journey across the Globe Reveals Jewish Communities Living Their Faith in Inspiring Ways – and in Surprising Places.
About the Author:
Charles London is the author of One Day the Soldiers Came: Voices of Children in War , and former program director of War Kids Relief, which promotes tolerance and respect among Iraqi and U.S. children. In 1999 he won the Rolling Stone College Journalism Award. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine , O: The Oprah Magazine , TheNation.com, The Baltimore Times , The Blue & White , The Columbia Review , and the Baltimore City Paper . He has been research associate for Refugees International and a young adult librarian for the New York Public Library. He lives in Brooklyn and is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Library and Information Science at Pratt Institute.