A River Could Be a Tree: A Memoir - Hardcover

Himsel, Angela

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1941493246 ISBN 13: 9781941493243

Publisher: Fig Tree Books LLC, 2018

Synopsis

How does a woman who grew up in rural Indiana as a fundamentalist Christian end up a practicing Jew in New York?

Angela Himsel was raised in a German-American family, one of eleven children who shared a single bathroom in their rented ramshackle farmhouse in Indiana. The Himsels followed an evangelical branch of Christianity—the Worldwide Church of God—which espoused a doomsday philosophy. Only faith in Jesus, the Bible, significant tithing, and the church's leader could save them from the evils of American culture—divorce, television, makeup, and even medicine.

From the time she was a young girl, Himsel believed that the Bible was the guidebook to being saved, and only strict adherence to the church's tenets could allow her to escape a certain, gruesome death, receive the Holy Spirit, and live forever in the Kingdom of God. With self-preservation in mind, she decided, at nineteen, to study at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. But instead of strengthening her faith, Himsel was introduced to a whole new world—one with different people and perspectives. Her eyes were slowly opened to the church's shortcomings, even dangers, and fueled her natural tendency to question everything she had been taught, including the guiding principles of the church and the words of the Bible itself.

Ultimately, the connection to God she so relentlessly pursued was found in the most unexpected place: a mikvah on Manhattan's Upper West Side. This devout Christian Midwesterner found her own form of salvation—as a practicing Jewish woman.

Himsel's seemingly impossible road from childhood cult to a committed Jewish life is traced in and around the major events of the 1970s and 80s with warmth, humor, and a multitude of religious and philosophical insights. A River Could Be a Tree: A Memoir is a fascinating story of struggle, doubt, and finally, personal fulfillment.

About this title

About the Author

Angela Himsel is a freelance writer based in New York City whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Jewish Week, the Forward, Lilith Magazine, BOMB Magazine and several other outlets. Her weekly column “Angetevka” on Zeek.net examined her life as an observant Jew on Manhattan’s Upper West Side against the backdrop of her fundamentalist Christian upbringing in Jasper, Indiana. For this body of work, Himsel received the American Jewish Press Association’s Rockower Award for Excellence in Commentary. She holds a BA in religious studies from Indiana University, which included a two-year stint studying at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and also has an MFA in creative writing from The City College of New York. Himsel is represented by The Deborah Harris Agency. More information can be found at AngelaHimsel.com.

Shulem Deen is a writer, journalist, and author of the award-winning memoir "All Who Go Do Not Return." He is a regular contributor to the Forward, and in 2015 was listed in the Forward 50, an annual list of American Jews with outsized roles on political and social issues. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, Salon, Tablet magazine, and elsewhere. He serves as a board member at Footsteps, a New York City-based organization that offers assistance and support to those who have left the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. He lives in Brooklyn.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

My parents were perplexed when I told them I wanted to spend my junior year in Israel. I was perplexed that they were perplexed. Hadn't we all sat in church for years and years listening to the minister and reading our Bibles and studying about the place in which God appeared, where the spiritual world met the physical plane? Wasn't Israel as much our spiritual home as Germany was our physical one?

Although going to Jerusalem to connect with my spiritual DNA made logical sense to me, it was considered a crazy, impulsive whim to both my parents and my siblings. In his end-of-the-world tone, my father warned me, "It's a powder keg over there! Jesus has to return lest all flesh should perish.'

My mother, however, clipped a bunch of newspaper articles about Israel to try to help me prepare. But I wasn't interested in what was going on there at that moment. It was biblical Israel I planned to inhabit.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fig Tree Books LLC
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1941493246
• ISBN 13: 9781941493243
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288