Am I a Jew?: My Journey Among the Believers and Pretenders, the Lapsed and the Lost, in Search of Faith (Not Necessarily My Own), My Roots, and Who Knows, Even Myself

What makes someone Jewish?

Theodore Ross was nine years old when he moved with his mother from New York City to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Once there, his mother decided, for both personal and spiritual reasons, to have her family pretend not to be Jewish. He went to an Episcopal school, where he studied the New Testament, sang in the choir, and even took Communion. Later, as an adult, he wondered: Am I still Jewish?

Seeking an answer, Ross traveled around the country and to Israel, visiti...