A Passionate Writing Life- PB

This compilation of much of Joseph Kaplan’s published work, sewn

together with new insights, explanations, and history, is not simply an

anthology or memoir. Rather, it is an engaging trip through the life and mind

of its author through stories of him as a student, husband, father, son,

brother, and grandfather; stories of his parents, grandparents, children,

grandchildren, siblings, friends, mentors, and colleagues, and his courting

of, and almost 60-year love affair with, his wife Sharon; stories of his

sojourns in the Bronx, Far Rockaway, the Upper West Side, and Teaneck,

and his 46 years as a commercial litigator, Sh’ma magazine fellow, and

Jewish Standard columnist.

But stories are only one part of the, well, story. The book is also chock-full

of Kaplan’s ideas and opinions about important subjects like Modern

Orthodoxy, his liberal politics, Orthodox Jewish feminism, the Covid and

Trump years, the culture wars, theodicy, church-state legal questions,

Jewish divorce law, liturgy and ritual, and more. Yet he also writes movingly

about softer, more intimate, topics like kindness, friendship, responsibility,

apologies, writing, change, language, and truth. And, of course, baseball

and books.