Acts of Faith: a Journey to the Fringes of Jewish Identity

Plot

Looks at Jewish communities in Mexico, Portugal, Majorca, Turkey, China, and Africa and tries to determine what it means to be a Jew.

Amazon Review: This short book consists of brief chapters on various groups of Jews whose "Jewishness" has been questioned by Jews living in the main Talmudic, Rabbinical tradition. Among them are the Karaites, the Samaritans, "Marranos" living in Portugal, the Falasha, the Bene Israel of India, the Jews of China (prior to the Ashkenazim taking shelter in Shanghai), a small group living in a village outside Mexico City, and others. The title, of course, alludes to "auto da fe", the torments to which Jews, among others, were subjected by the Inquisition.
Each portrait is quite vivid, factually and humanly, the result of the author's own visits with members of the groups, in their own locales, or at least with those in the best position to know, as well as his own library and archive research.
The author had been a journalist in the USA and Israel, and the type of easy personal manner that is so valuable to a journalist comes through in this book, without the superficiality so common among members of that trade. I also notice a directness and good humor, a willingness to take people at their word that seems to have become less common in the twentyfive years since the book was written. This is epitomized, it seems to me, in the author's conclusion that people who feel that they are Jews are in fact Jews.