A typ­i­cal lapsed Jew, at age 36, Sarah Hur­witz, a White House speech­writer, recon­nect­ed with Judaism and dis­cov­ered mil­len­nia of wis­dom which she detailed in her first book, Here All Along.

Years lat­er, as Hur­witz wres­tled with what it means to be Jew­ish amidst ris­ing anti­semitism, she won­dered: Why hadn’t she seen the beau­ty and depth of her tra­di­tion in those dull syn­a­gogue ser­vices and Hebrew school class­es she’d endured as a kid? Why had her Jew­ish iden­ti­ty con­sist­ed of a series of caveats and apolo­gies: ​“I’m Jew­ish, but not that Jew­ish” … ​“I’m just a cul­tur­al Jew”? 

Seek­ing answers, she went back through time to dis­cov­er how hate­ful myths about Jew­ish pow­er, deprav­i­ty, and con­spir­a­cy have worn a neur­al groove into the world’s psy­che and how her Jew­ish iden­ti­ty had been shaped by mil­len­nia of anti­semitism and cen­turies of Jew­ish self-era­sure.

Hur­witz doc­u­ments her quest to take back her Jew­ish­ness: how she stripped away lay­ers of anti­se­mit­ic lies, unearthed Judaism’s trea­sures, and learned to live proud­ly, grate­ful­ly, and joy­ful­ly – as a Jew.