In Lovesong: Becoming a Jew Julius Lester begins by declaring this truth of his own self-identity first formally accepted while he was in retreat at a Trappist monastery in Spencer, Massachusetts: "I have become who I am. I am who I always was. I am no longer deceived by the black face which stares at me from the window. I am a Jew" (Lester 1). At Lovesong's end Lester concludes that "the essence of Chosenness" is a mixing of the "joyous and mournful", that is, a gladness for the gift which has been given and a bit of sorrow at how much responsibility such a gift entails (Lester 243). In discovering who he is Lester has moved along his chosen path which has intentionally mixed the traditions of two of America's most dominant minorities, the blacks and the Jews. Part of the explosive nature of Lovesong is that in its pages Lester indicates that before he could reformulate his identity he first had to erase it. In choosing to recast his black identity into that of a Jewish child of God, Lester straddles two separate experiential worlds often marked by racial exclusivity and society's prejudicial rejection. A large part of Lovesong's power stems from Lester's uncommon ability to celebrate the minority status of both his black racial inheritance and his chosen Jewish faith.
Writing in the Partisan Review Leonard Kriegel asserts that the fear and suspicion that exists between blacks and Jews is due to the "false image" which they have of each other (Kriegel 573). Kriegel indicates that each minority group names the other as its oppressor while simultaneously foregrounding their own group's societal status as "victims of racial hatred" (Kriegel 573). Kriegel indicates that each group, in truth, is victimized by their own participation in games of "political correctness" which
see them giving "racial color" to small incidents, fiercely protecting their own group's interests and vigilantly watching against "exploitation by th...