Philip Roth the Conversion of the Jews

¶ … Conversion of the Jews

"Mama, don't you see -- you shouldn't hit me. He shouldn't hit me. You shouldn't hit me about God, Mamma. You should never hit anybody about God."

In this passage, the young boy Oscar is upset because he has been physically assaulted both by his rabbi and by his mother over his questioning of religion. When confronted with his questions, the child is attacked and his questions left unanswered. The perception of the adults is that he is being cheeky or obnoxious for the sake of being so, or perhaps even worse, he dares question their dogma. Their violence then is in response to perceived heresy. For children, they naturally come to a point where curiosity leads to the asking of questions based on the fact that there are things they simply do not understand. This reminds me of a story from my own life. I have a young relative who was in Sunday school. He was only three years old and the teacher was discussing theological reasons for rain. Specifically, she told the class that it was raining because "Jesus was taking a shower." This young man and I had already had a discussion about nature and science and so, confronted with what he knew to be a falsehood, my relative stood up and said, "That's not true. It rains because the nimbus clouds are full of water." Rather than alter her original position, the Sunday school teacher insulted the child and told him that he lacked faith. His scientific knowledge conflicted with her theological theory and so she verbally attacked. In the face of religious ideology, sometimes there is no place for questions or conflicting perspectives.

2. On the surface, the plot of Philip Roth's "The Conversion of the Jews" is about the theological curiosity of a young boy and how that relatively innocent curiosity led to his being on the roof of a synagogue, deciding whether or not to jump off of it. Besides Ozzie, the main character, the other characters are in the story are Ozzie's mother, Rabbi Binder who completely misunderstands Ozzie's questions, and Itzie (Ozzie's best friend). The crux of the story comes from the introduction of Christian ideology into Ozzie's heretofore strictly Jewish education. Where Rabbi Binder is discussing Jesus as a historical figure, it stems in Ozzie a theological crisis. In the human world, biology dictates that a child cannot be conceived without intercourse between a man and a woman. Yet, Christians believe that Jesus was the son of God and that he and Mary conceived him without the biological function of sex.