Rootless : A Jewish Journey

What defines our identity? What gives us a sense of "rootedness" in one place or another? What determines the places and communities in which we feel at home? In this book, Rabbi David Goldberg grapples with the idea of rootlessness - the feeling of never quite belonging. As a young Jewish boy growing up in Manchester, Goldberg felt slightly removed from the northern city, a feeling which continued through education at Oxford University and rabbinic training at the Leo Baeck College. Goldberg has always argued the advantages of being both English and Jewish, the recipient of a double heritage that embraced William the Conqueror and Magna Carta on the one hand, and Abraham and Moses on the other. For him, broadly-based, eclectic liberal humanism has been more enriching than religious parochialism, and being familiar with two cultures, therefore able to adapt almost anywhere in a western civic milieu, makes for a more rounded personality. Yet in this book he faces the realities of being "rootless," unravelling the different pieces of identity and community which shaped him - and in doing so, identifies the factors which shape us all as individuals.