Letter from the Editor
The Power of Expectations
M
prise, sometimes suspicion, some- times curiosity. It’s said by non-Jews who believe they know what a Jew is supposed to look like — and by Jews themselves, echoing internal- ized ideas shaped by history, fami- ly, media, and inherited biases.” His portraits and the accompanying essay, by writer Glynis Ratcliffe, serve as a kaleidoscopic exploration of these encounters, from the painful to the comedic. But, as stories elsewhere in this issue reveal, there are also other ways Jewish identity gets coded — whether through religious practice, cultural shorthand, or institutional imprimatur — and ways that those codes are being challenged and revised. Whether it’s an Orthodox rabbi bypassing organizational norms for conversion (meet him in the Q&A), the growing number of Jews opting for cremation (the theo- logical implications of which are examined in On One Foot), or stereotypical depictions of Jewish men and women in pop culture (discussed in Bookish), received expectations are not a reliable guide. Perhaps they never were. HAMUTAL DOTAN EDITOR IN CHIEF SCRIBE QUARTERLY
AGAZINES are inherently col- laborative: you cannot make one on your own, and even if you could,
who would want to? The joy and satisfaction in creating them is in the conversations you have as you bat ideas around with writers, work with an artist to land on different ways to illustrate a particularly tricky essay, go back and forth with other One consequence of this: some- times, without any one person real- izing or intending it, themes in your collective work emerge organically. We did not originally imagine this issue as having a specific focus, but soon enough, it became clear that most of the stories in it were, in their own ways, responding to the same questions: What conventionally received ideas do we have about being Jewish? What — and who — do those received ideas leave out? The photo essay that anchors the issue, almost a year in the making, began with an email from photog- rapher Shlomi Amiga about an idea that he had been mulling for a long editors about how to frame a contentious issue as fairly and accurately as possible. time, one inspired by a seeming- ly simple comment: You don’t look Jewish. “It’s a phrase that lingers,” he wrote, “sometimes offered with sur-
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