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A review by boneloose
Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology (Revised and Updated Edition) by Evelyn Torton Beck
5.0
I loved the variety of media involved in this anthology. Instead of it simply being a bunch of essays, there were several poems, a couple stories, and even a recorded conversation and some excerpts from letters. Also, the essays weren't written in super academic language, so they were not difficult to comprehend. While some of the passages were pretty sad (to be expected, it's about being a Jewish lesbian in the 80s and even earlier), there were some that were more empowering that really stuck with me. Several lines even made me go "ooh" out loud, which rarely happens. My favorite passage was definitely "Coffee and Cake." I liked the alternative format as a story instead of an essay. Also, some of the lines were really powerful. I was highlighting powerful quotes sporadically throughout the book, but four of those alone are from this one story. I love reading literature that leaves an impact. I have marked several pages to go back to and think about more deeply.
My only critique is the way age gaps in relationships were handled. It almost brought my rating down to 4 stars. Significant age gaps were discussed, but I felt that they were not condemned at all. For example, one author in the book talks about how her 13 year old lesbian daughter was involved with a 21 year old woman, and the author only expressed being upset with her daughter being a lesbian and being "rebellious," as opposed to being in a relationship with someone literally almost twice as old as her. Also, I'm not sure if I interpreted this correctly, but from my current understanding in a different area of the book an author mentions how she was involved with a teenager when she was presumably an adult. The nonchalance about these significant age gaps doesn't sit well with me at all. There's already pervasive stereotypes about gay people being pedophiles, and it's very uncomfortable to realize that these stereotypes, although taken to an extreme, have at least somewhat of a basis in reality.
Overall, my opinion of the book was very high. Some passages really stuck with me, and I found myself wanting to stop and annotate to really think about the text more, which is something I had never experienced before. I have some critiques, but the good outweighed the bad. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about the experience of Jewish lesbians, because this book opens a very honest, open, and needed dialogue.