Why is the blog called Accidentally Jewish?

The first reaction to, “My blog is Accidentally Jewish,” is usually laughter and then the person will ask, “why is it called that? How are you accidentally Jewish?”

I say, “well, I converted,” and they respond, “That sounds intentional, not accidental.”

True, true.

When you are studying something intensely, sometimes you need breaks. When I was studying Judaism, sometimes I needed breaks from Jewish books. I would go, pick out some book from the store, like The Geisha’s Granddaughter and it would wind up having a Jewish theme. Argh.

Ronnie and I were eating chicken pot pie at some point during the year of study leading up to my conversion. I was complaining about a book I was reading, “all I wanted was a non-Jewish book, I can’t read another book about Judaism… and this one turned out to be accidentally Jewish. All these books are accidentally jewish!”

Ronnie said it would be a good name for a book. I said, “No, my book will be called Shabbat and the Single Girl.” This blog, however, took on the name. (And so did my manuscript that is currently gathering dust in a drawer.)