Introducing The Jew From Nowhere

Longtime readers of First Things will probably be able to guess the third in this sequence: Catholic, Protestant, _______.

Astute observers will also note that First Things has so far launched two topical newsletters: the Fourth Watch pertaining to Catholicism, and the Protestant Mind. Which means the time is ripe for a newsletter on Judaism to complete the trifecta.

Our latest newsletter project is The Jew From Nowhere, authored by J. J. Kimche, which will launch next Wednesday, March 18. The newsletter is about the tangle and treasure that is Judaism and Jewish identity, which J. J. is well-positioned to comment on in both a personal and scholarly capacity. He writes,

To shed light on the scope of this new project, let us turn our attention to a deceptively simple and innocuous nest of questions, which has bedeviled thinkers for millennia. Namely: What exactly are the Jews? How are we to define, calculate, or categorize Jewishness? Which entities or phenomena can rightly be labelled “Jewish,” and what might constitute their boundaries? Attempted definitions are as numerous and diverse as those who have attempted to define it. Yet despite the extrusion of much scholarly ink over the centuries, no single definition—one which would seamlessly unite the Hasidic Rabbi studying the Talmud in Brooklyn, the atheist Kibbutznik raising pigs in the Galilee, and the Buddhist Jew meditating in some Oriental ashram—has attained universal assent. 

Are Jews a nation? A religious group? With sparkling prose and inviting erudition, J. J. beckons you to enter the fray with him: “With no single definition satisfying our needs, we are left with little choice but to concede the partial truth of each suggestion. . . . One of the many glories (and frustrations) of Jewishness is its multiplicity.”

Not Jewish? J. J. assures you that you are most welcome, and that his “role will be that of the generous and welcoming host, eager to show his guests around beauties and peculiarities of his well-tended garden, rounding out the evening with a fine witticism or amusing anecdote.”

J. J. is a professor of religion and philosophy at the University of Austin, Texas (UATX). Born and raised in London, he studied as a young adult in Jerusalem, and his studies eventually took him to Harvard and now Texas. He is a contributor to First Things and also hosts the Podcast of Jewish Ideas. The title of his newsletter, The Jew From Nowhere, is taken from Thomas Nagel’s book The View From Nowhere (1986).

I urge you to subscribe for free by clicking here or by visiting jewfromnowhere.com. The Jew From Nowhere will hit your inbox twice a month and won’t be available to read anywhere else. 

This project is made possible through the generous support of the John Templeton Foundation, allowing First Things to launch a series of newsletters about the topics that matter most to our readers. In December, we launched the Fourth Watch, a newsletter about Catholicism written by James F. Keating (subscribe here), and last month we launched the Protestant Mind by Dale Coulter (subscribe here). Both have been hugely successful, and we are pleased to add another to the lineup.

For now, subscribe to The Jew From Nowhere. As J. J. says, “Hopefully, with enough vision and collaboration, we may just arrive somewhere.”