The Pater My Father My Judaism My Childlessness eBook Elliot Jager
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Elliot Jager was eight when his father walked out on him and his mother. Decades later, struggling to reconcile with his now elderly Pater, he discovers he can never be a father himself. Feeling doubly betrayed, by the earthly father who abandoned him and the one in Heaven who denies him, Jager sets out to discover the meaning of life without children.
Talking to other men – single and married, gay and straight – who share his plight, he explores the stigmas of the Jewish community towards the childless, the sense of helplessness and failure that comes with infertility, and the existential battle to fill the void. Brave, poignant, and uncompromisingly honest, The Pater tells the hitherto untold story of the childless Jewish man.
The Pater My Father My Judaism My Childlessness eBook Elliot Jager
Elliot Jager has pulled off the impossible, writing a book about childlessness that isn’t depressing. He does the trick by mixing in a good deal of his own story, and the stories of other childless families.The starring figure of the book is not the author himself, but the eponymous Pater of the title, who abandoned his family when the author was eight to search for a holier life than he could find on the lower east side of Manhattan. When the author as a middle-aged man begins a relationship with his father, the Pater’s main concern is that his son bear fruit, ideally a son to say Kaddish.
Jager and his wife, while no strangers to prayer, put their faith in IVF procedures at a top hospital (spoiler alert) which fails to deliver the goods. The Pater wants the author puts his faith in miracle workers, but this too is not to be. Jager interviews childless men who do put their faith in miracles on one sort or another, but for most, rationalization offers the best cure.
I read this book in one sitting, despite knowing how it must turn out, because I still wanted to know how the story ended. And (spoiler alert), the story does have a happy ending, at least compared with the saga of the Pater’s childhood.
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The Pater My Father My Judaism My Childlessness eBook Elliot Jager Reviews
This book by Jager is a wonderful story of the feelings which men, in Judaism and out, feel about not being fathers. I had really not given the situation much thought. Some are parents and some couples are not - so what? However Jager examines the various strains of Judaism and their putting down childless men. The pain, feelings of inferiority etc... that one must feel come compellingly through the book. This was a job well done. Received through Goodreads Giveaway.
J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the Isms" "Wesley's Wars" "To Whom It May Concern" and "Tell Me About the United Methodist Church"
The Pater My Father, My Judaism, My Childlessness
By
Elliot Jager
This is a book that is full of pain. First of all, it is painfully honest. Second, it addresses an issue that is a major cause of pain – the fact that the author is unable to have children. The issue assumes additional prominence given the author’s Jewish roots and identity. This last is further aggravated by the writer’s ambivalent attitude to the orthodox Jewish observance with which he grew up and his intellectual and emotional departure from adherence to every minute feature of orthodox Judaism. And over and beyond all that is the fact that his ultra-orthodox father (the ‘Pater’ of the title) abandoned eight-year-old Elliot and his mother in New York and went to live in Israel.
I must admit that I felt distinctly uncomfortable reading this book. It is really unfair that most people seem to be able to beget children without so much as a second thought, and in many cases turn out to be unfit or inadequate parents. In this day and age many cases of infertility can be remedied by IVF, and the ‘tragedy’ of being childless averted. In the case of Elliot Jager and his wife, however, this was not the case.
Being unable to procreate raises many questions about God, Judaism and faith in general, and Elliot Jager goes into these subjects at great (some might say inordinate) length, while also interviewing other (mainly observant) Jewish men in a similar position, interspersing those segments with the account of his own experiences as an only child in a single-parent family and his feelings about his absent father. The story is complex, and after a period of thirty years in which there was no contact between the two, Elliot reaches out to his aged father and is eventually reconciled with him to some extent.
That extent is limited by Elliot’s rejection of what he regards as his father’s irrational and superstitious version of fanatical adherence to every jot and tittle of Jewish observance, even going so far as to mock it. And yet their reconciliation also seems to give him some kind of consolation. In sum, the reader comes away with the sense that the author has achieved closure of a kind, or at least found a modicum of serenity and acceptance of his fate.
All the same, I don’t envy him.
Amazing writing !!
Interesting.
Excellent reading. A shearing portrayal of father son conflict with insights into Jewish religion, culture and traditions. Would strongly recommend to other readers.
As a mother of four children, it was with a bit of trepidation that I picked up Mr. Jaeger’s book “The Pater”. However by way of his engaging and sometimes witty narration-- he gently takes his reader through his journey from a fatherless child to a childless man. Society is naturally compassionate to the spiritual void of the childless woman whilst equally the grief and sorrow men experience often goes unaddressed.
I praise the author’s poignant courage in sharing his experience and I hope this book will give comfort and encouragement to other men struggling with these very real feelings. I highly recommend this book to others.
Elliot Jager's Pater is much more than an autobiographical invitation to empathize with his condition of childlessness. He achieves much more. With wisdom, wit, and utter candor he carries us forward on his personal journey as a single child, abandoned by his father, agonizing over his situation as a childless adult. He explores the psychological, sociological, and theological fallout of his predicament, challenging his religious tradition and God-as-Father to provide guidance, if not comforting answers. The result is a book that arouses deeply our thinking and feeling about all issues concerning family, parents, children, and our humanity.
Elliot Jager has pulled off the impossible, writing a book about childlessness that isn’t depressing. He does the trick by mixing in a good deal of his own story, and the stories of other childless families.
The starring figure of the book is not the author himself, but the eponymous Pater of the title, who abandoned his family when the author was eight to search for a holier life than he could find on the lower east side of Manhattan. When the author as a middle-aged man begins a relationship with his father, the Pater’s main concern is that his son bear fruit, ideally a son to say Kaddish.
Jager and his wife, while no strangers to prayer, put their faith in IVF procedures at a top hospital (spoiler alert) which fails to deliver the goods. The Pater wants the author puts his faith in miracle workers, but this too is not to be. Jager interviews childless men who do put their faith in miracles on one sort or another, but for most, rationalization offers the best cure.
I read this book in one sitting, despite knowing how it must turn out, because I still wanted to know how the story ended. And (spoiler alert), the story does have a happy ending, at least compared with the saga of the Pater’s childhood.
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