In the age of the internet, authors can bite back against reviewers! No one is safe from blog posts! Not that I'm complaining at all about the lovely review of The J-Word which appeared in the JC.

It's just that some who read the review have since asked me: in The J-Word, do I really refer to "pick and mix" Masorti Jews? Of course not! This comfortable, judgemental cliché belongs entirely to the reviewer.

I hope that in The J-Word I have portrayed the Jewish world as so much more complicated than that! Everyone picks and mixes - frum and secular alike.

The kind and more-or-less observant man who rushes to the aid of Jack when he is being attacked, and takes him home to be cared for, belongs to the (fictitious) Golders Green Masorti synagogue.

By contrast, the noisy and chaotic Jewish family where young Danny spends Friday night, one of their number talking on a mobile phone during kiddush, is intended to be mainstream Jews - of a type that we all know, and definitely not Masorti!

(You can click here to read the JC's review of The J-Word: http://www.thejc.com/articles/grandad-fights-back)
(Or click here for a selection of other reviews of the book: http://www.andrewsanger.com/The-J-Word - my favourite is at http://www.oyvagoy.com/2009/03/an-interview-with-andrew-sanger)