Kosher Meat
edited by Lawrence SchimelSherman Asher Publishing, 144 pp., $14.95 (paper)
The premise of Kosher Meat, a slim collection of 10 short stories detailing the sex lives of gay Jewish men, sounds rather routine at first glance. Every trope that the reader expects to find in these stories, after all, from the conflicted Jew having sex with an Aryan to the haywire politics of interfaith dating, are represented with expository obsession. But in his introduction to the stories, editor Lawrence Schimel sets his goals on a loftier plane, declaring that the book should “affix our position more firmly on the literary map similar to the way that the foundation of the State of Israel helped to place Jewish concerns on the world agenda of nation-state politics.” Not only is this fiction about being Jewish and queer — it’s about planting one’s flag in the earth, as it were.
Unlike Melvin Jules Bukiet’s 1999 anthology Neurotica: Jewish Writers on Sex, Schimel’s assembly cannot boast an impressive roster of A-list writers flexing their muscles on page and in bed. The lack of star quality, though, serves only to boost Schimel’s declaration that the publication of these voices is overdue. Rick Stanford’s “Isaac and Moshe,” for instance, is a ballsy depiction of a gay porn actor teaching two Jewish youngsters the arguments against rote religious faith and for intense sexual expression. Brian Stein’s “The Good Son” is an engaging little drama about an interfaith couple, Noah and Patrick, who deal with intense family scrutiny at the funeral of Noah’s estranged father. As is the case throughout the collection, Stein’s work is adept at showing how the alienation of living on the fringes of family or society can translate into a drive for enhanced intimacy within a sexual relationship.
The collection also displays an awareness that a significant portion of its readership will be more interested in the “meat” part of the title than the “kosher.” Appropriately, there is no lack of sexual activity in the anthology, brainy and self-obsessed as it may be. David O’Steinberg’s “Down, Down” is a particularly graphic tale of cruising a park in Tel Aviv for physical encounters and a quick comparative analysis of touches of S&M here versus there. Schimel, though, is aware that to accomplish his goal of creating a literary nation-state in the model of Israel, it takes more than a wink and a kiss. Every story in Kosher Meat is quite clearly written with some fascinating theories and ideas brewing in the minds and the pants of each writer. Sadly, not each is executed with the grace and skill one would desire. What the collection lacks in consistency, though, it atones for with ideas unstripped of their power or nerve.
This article appears in March 23 • 2001.