BY ALIX WALL SEPTEMBER 11, 2019
When Sarah Hurwitz was working as a senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama, and later as head speechwriter for Michelle Obama, she often was assumed to be a good source of knowledge about Judaism.
Except Hurwitz wasn’t.
She had grown up nominally Reform. And after her bat mitzvah, Hurwitz felt her relationship with Judaism was pretty much over.
“I don’t think I’m the only Jew who has viewed Judaism as if it were a distant relative whom I loved in a vague familial way and was required to see a few times a year but had no desire to get to know further,” Hurwitz wrote in her new book, “Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life – in Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There)” (Spiegel & Grau).