In recent years, there is per­haps no top­ic more explored in Amer­i­can Jew­ry than the rise of anti­semitism. As such, books must approach the top­ic from a unique per­spec­tive to stand out, occu­py­ing their own niche in rela­tion to the oth­er books in the field. As a Jew: Reclaim­ing Our Sto­ry from Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us by Sarah Hur­witz dis­tin­guish­es itself as one of the more acces­si­ble books on the top­ic of anti­semitism in recent years. It is straight­for­ward with­out los­ing nuance, his­tor­i­cal while still feel­ing very of the moment, and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly per­son­al yet able to touch read­ers with diverse backgrounds.

This acces­si­bil­i­ty should come as no sur­prise. Sarah Hur­witz is a for­mer speech­writer for Michelle Oba­ma. She wrote her first book, Here All Along, after tak­ing an intro­duc­tion to Judaism course and real­iz­ing that despite drop­ping out of Jew­ish edu­ca­tion as a child, Judaism is very much also for adults. As a Jew reads as a com­pan­ion to this first book. Where Here All Along spoke about the won­der­ful and beau­ti­ful aspects of the Jew­ish expe­ri­ence, As a Jew speaks about the strug­gles Jews face as we walk through the world.

Near­ly every chap­ter begins with a per­son­al anec­dote that intro­duces many of the themes con­tained with­in. In one instance, Hur­witz feels inspired to read the New Tes­ta­ment as part of her hos­pi­tal chap­lain­cy train­ing, only to con­front many inflam­ma­to­ry stereo­types: that Jews killed Jesus, that the Old Tes­ta­ment exists to pre­fig­ure Christ, and that Chris­tian­i­ty has ​“super­seded” Judaism as the true reli­gion. These rev­e­la­tions pro­vide her with an open­ing to explore the his­to­ry of anti­semitism with­in Chris­tian­i­ty and the harm that many of these beliefs have done to Jews over time.

Anoth­er anec­dote found Hur­witz defend­ing the idea of the bris to a patient — who sim­ply men­tioned that she had attend­ed one — because of her inter­nal­ized dis­com­fort with the rit­u­al. The shame of her reac­tion leads her to explore Dara Horn’s dichoto­my between ​“Purim anti­semitism” (overt hatred and attempt­ed phys­i­cal harm of Jews) and ​“Hanukkah anti­semitism” (soci­etal pres­sures to assim­i­late and con­form at the expense of one’s Jew­ish iden­ti­ty). Hur­witz mas­ter­ful­ly traces the impulse to ​“fit in” from the Hel­lenis­tic peri­od through today, explain­ing why Jews have felt a need to aban­don Jew­ish prac­tice for the sake of oth­ers, and how that sub­se­quent­ly affects the Jew­ish community.

Read­ers will like­ly find Hurwitz’s treat­ment of left wing anti-Zion­ism to be par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing giv­en the dis­cus­sions going around many col­lege cam­pus­es. Hur­witz is not an auto­mat­ic sup­port­er of Israel’s actions, but dis­cuss­es the issues in a nuanced man­ner. She unpacks var­i­ous facets of the anti-Zion­ist move­ment, pro­vid­ing read­ers — espe­cial­ly cur­rent stu­dents — with the tools to nav­i­gate this chal­leng­ing landscape.

Hurwitz’s pres­tige — from her first book to her time in the White House — has led her across the coun­try, espe­cial­ly to cam­pus­es through­out Amer­i­ca where is able to con­nect with stu­dents. In one of the most mov­ing chap­ters, As a Jew ends with a call for deep­er Jew­ish engage­ment. Rather than shy away from their reli­gion, Hur­witz implores these stu­dents to lean in, study­ing more and being unapolo­get­i­cal­ly Jewish.