Rebecca Dana worshipped at the altar of Truman Capote and Nora Ephron, dreaming of moving to New York. After college, life in the city turned out just as she’d planned: glamorous parties; beautiful people; the perfect job, apartment and man. But when it all comes crashing down, she is catapulted into another world.
She moves into Brooklyn’s Lubavitch community, and lives with Cosmo, a young Russian rabbi and jujitsu enthusiast. While Cosmo faces his disenchantment with Orthodoxy, Rebecca finds that her religion—the books and films that made New York seem like salvation—has also failed her. Shuttling between the worlds of religious extremism and secular excess, faith and fashion, Rebecca goes on a search for meaning.
A mix of Shalom Auslander and The Odd Couple, Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde is a thought-provoking tale for the twenty-first century.
Includes a Readers Guide
Author
Rebecca Dana
Rebecca Dana is a writer and journalist in New York. She is a former senior correspondent for Newsweek and the Daily Beast, where she wrote the weekly “Social Diaries” magazine column and reported on fashion, culture, and entertainment. She has been a featured commentator on such shows as the Today show, The Joy Behar Show, Inside Edition, Access Hollywood, and NPR’s “On the Media” and “Fair Game with Faith Salie.” She has made numerous appearances on MSNBC and CNN. Before joining the Daily Beast, Dana was a staff writer for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Observer. She has also been published in: Rolling Stone Magazine, Vanity Fair Italia, Slate, Men’s Vogue, the Washington Post, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Men’s Journal, and the New York Times. She attended Yale, where she was the editor in chief of the Yale Daily News. She lives in Manhattan with her husband.
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