From lawyerin' to clownin', a Jew-ish journey

Robert Markowitz was a nice Jewish boy just trying to do what he thought he was supposed to, building on the legacy of his immigrant grandfather to rise to fulfill his mother’s dream of becoming a lawyer. But, like many of us who do things ultimately for others, he discovered it made him absolutely miserable. 

So, he swung the pendulum all the way from being a super-serious lawyer to becoming a literal clown. He says that started a thaw that allowed him to “feel” again, and resurrected his inner child. Despite thinking he “wasn’t that Jewish," he says in the end, it was Jewish themes that interest him, like redemption, or “teshuva,” which means to “return.” His own journey of teshuva allowed Robert to rediscover how to seek and spread joy. He became a children’s musician and then a writer, and has a novel about a lawyer who left lawyering to save his soul, called…."Clown Shoes” of course. What else?

Glossary: 

Shyster: often defined simply as meaning an unscrupulous scam artist or unprofessional lawyer, the term is generally used as–and therefore has taken on the meaning of–an antisemitic slur or coded reference to the stereotype of the “greedy Jew.” It’s often also associated with Shakespeare’s deeply anti-Semitic character of Shylock.

Teshuva: Literally meaning “return”, it is often used to mean “redemption” or “repentance,” in the sense of “returning” to the goodness or Godliness innate to us all. 

Ner Tamid: Meaning “eternal light,” it is a literal light that is kept lit at all times in front of the ark, where Torah scrolls are kept, and is also a symbol of the eternal presence of God. 

Shtetl: Yiddish for “little town,” the term refers to Ashkenazi Jewish enclaves primarily in Russia and Poland, and in fact housed many Gentiles as well as Jews. They were market towns with synagogues, churches and merchants, and were ultimately destroyed when the Holocaust wiped out most of Eastern European Jewry. 

More on the Jewish lawyer trope and other “positive stereotypes”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVO6lErmy84&ab_channel=KatzCenterforAdvancedJudaicStudies

https://jeffreykass.medium.com/jews-are-the-best-lawyers-50d33738249e

https://www.heyalma.com/rapping-jewish-lawyers-history/ 

https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/21/books/even-good-stereotypes-can-be-bad-myriad-subjects-with-common-thread-images-we.html 

https://www.jta.org/2019/02/19/ideas/an-idiots-guide-to-anti-semitic-tropes-2 

More on the term “antisemitic” and “anti-Semitic”:

https://www.adl.org/spelling-antisemitism-vs-anti-semitism 

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/anti-semitism-or-antisemitism 

https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/antisemitism/spelling-antisemitism 

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