We can simply define the concept of «identity» as the set of characteristics of a person that distinguish them from others. Therefore, Jewish identity is the set of Jewish characteristics of an individual that distinguish them from those who are not. However, the problem lies in how to compile this list of characteristics that would define someone as Jewish. Because apparently, the list drawn up by an ultra-Orthodox Jew would be very different from the list of a secular Jew, or a Zionist, or a Reform Jew, or a humanist, to name just a few.

When searching for an answer to the problem of what to include on this list, we come across the character of Leopold Bloom in the novel «Ulysses,» whom its author, James Joyce, characterizes as someone who knows he is descended from Jews, but who does not consider himself Jewish or practice Judaism. Professor Morton P. Levitt, referring to Leopold Bloom, one of the main characters in that novel, clearly describes him as not a very good Jew. In fact, halachically speaking, he wasn’t Jewish at all, since his mother was not Jewish and he was never circumcised. In the work, says Levitt, there is some suggestion that his mother may have been half-Jewish and that his father was a Hungarian Jew. But even if this were true and Bloom were three-quarters Jewish, he still lacks the necessary connection to his direct maternal line—that is, if his mother’s mother wasn’t Jewish, then neither is he.

Nevertheless, and despite the fact that in the novel Leopold Bloom denies being Jewish, Levitt says that Judaism is at Bloom’s very heart and is part of his identity. He bases his assertion on a number of Jewish references Bloom makes, many of which date back to his childhood as the son of an immigrant Jewish father from Szombathely, Hungary. And Levitt quotes Joyce: “Bloom solemnly reads from a scroll the list of his Jewish knowledge: Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Dalet, Aggadah, Tefillin, Kosher, Yom Kippur, Chanukah, Rosh Hashanah, Bnei Brith, Mitzvah, Matzot, Ashkenazim, Meshugah, Tallit.”

It’s incredible, but that short list on Bloom’s scroll includes what we might call the common denominator of any Jew’s identity. Let’s see: the letters of the Hebrew alphabet symbolize the sacred scriptures; agadah: its ethical content; tefillin: daily religious practice; kosher: Jewish practice in the home; Yom Kippur: our relationship with our fellow human beings; Hanukkah: our national sense of belonging; Rosh Hashanah: belonging to the Jewish world; Bnei Brith: participation in community organizations; mitzvah: God’s commandments; matzot: the Exodus from Egypt as the founding event of the Jewish people; Ashkenazim: the differences between Jewish groups; meshugah: Jewish folklore; and tallit: its connection to its history. All the different groups within Judaism share, to a greater or lesser extent, elements of Bloom’s list.

The talent of James Joyce is indisputable. In a novel as complex as Ulysses, he captured, in Leopold Bloom, that common denominator that defines the essence of being Jewish.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Morton P. Levitt: “The Greatest Jew of All”: James Joyce, Leopold Bloom and the Modernist Archetype.