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Title: Today I am a fountain pen...
Review: Even though it's nominally about bar mitzvah celebrations, this book really uses them as a taking-off point to look at the state of Judaism in America today, from Temple Emanu-El to the Lubavitchers, with numerous stops in between. I had actually expected (with a mixture of anticipation and dread) that the book would be mostly about the over-the-top parties of the type we see in the recent movie Keeping Up With The Steins. Oppenheimer does discuss these affairs, but most of the book is about the personal Jewish experience in a variety of places around the country: I found the most interesting part to be the study of a tiny congregation in St. Charles, Louisiana. Highly readable, highly recommended.
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