Giv­en the rate of inter­mar­riage in Amer­i­ca, which hov­ers at slight­ly over fifty per­cent, it would seem there is lit­tle need for Grish’s Shiksa’s Guide to Dat­ing Jew­ish Men—every­one is suc­ceed­ing just fine on their own, thank you very much! An over­all poor­ly researched and dis­taste­ful piece of writ­ing, the book is not with­out specks of humor and real­ism. Boy Vey! comes com­plete with recipes for latkes and Nana’s chick­en soup, a glos­sary of pop­u­lar Yid­dish words and phras­es, and advice about what to wear on the Jew­ish hol­i­days. Grish employs stereo­types with aban­don, includ­ing the over­bear­ing and neu­rot­ic Jew­ish moth­er and the always-tact­less J.A.P. The book, as a whole, is char­ac­ter­ized by a mock­ing and patron­iz­ing tone; it is not rec­om­mend­ed for the Jew­ish reader.

Addi­tion­al Review by Daniel Grushkin

A how-to guide on snag­ging a Jew­ish man, Grish’s con­tro­ver­sial book draws ire from Jew­ish women and ​“I told you sos” from their coun­ter­parts. The book is an ode to Jew­ish men’s open­ness, sex­u­al prowess and all-around excel­lence. But it best serves as a snarky sur­vival guide to our cul­tur­al mores. Both fun­ny and provoca­tive, the book draws from exten­sive inter­views and Grish’s own Hebrew-cen­tric dat­ing life. Unfor­tu­nate­ly her mod­el Jew­ish man is a not-too-dis­tant cousin of Woody Allen, a char­ac­ter we love and love to loath. Jus­ti­fi­ably, male read­ers will alter­nate between feel­ing flat­tered and harassed. Of course, the read­ing expe­ri­ence depends whol­ly on tol­er­ance for inter­faith dat­ing and wise­cracks com­ing from across the reli­gious divide. Either way, Grish’s admi­ra­tion of Jew­ish cul­ture shines through.