I was already obsessed with “Hazel Says No,” Jessica Berger Gross’s debut novel about a high school senior who boldly shuts down her principal’s vulgar advances on her first day at a new school, and then I got to the part where Hey Alma is name-dropped and I screamed. (I mean that literally; I woke up my poor husband.)
Hazel Greenberg Blum is an 18-year-old Jewish girl from Brooklyn who gets transplanted, along with the rest of her family, to a college town in Maine. Hazel has many desires — to be a writer, to go to Vassar, to make something special out of her life — and the events of that traumatic first day somehow speed up all three of those endeavors, though not in the way she could have ever imagined or hoped for. Meanwhile, the rest of her family deals with the fallout of both Hazel’s thrust into the spotlight and their own transitions to life in a new place.
Also, a swastika is spray-painted outside their door.
Berger Gross knows what it’s like to be Jewish in a small town, having moved with her own family to Maine a decade ago. The book is peppered with authentic moments of un-belonging, but also surprising (and hilarious) moments of finding community and connection (though in case you’re wondering, the local rabbi’s wife is currently at bagel school in New Jersey).
By the time I got to the end of this book, I wanted to hug everybody in the Greenberg Blum family, tell all my coworkers and friends to read this book and speak to Jessica Berger Gross — who graciously answered all my questions about writing non-stereotypical Jewish characters, the Jewish food scene in Maine and how to name a Jewish dog.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Like the Blums, your own Jewish family moved from Brooklyn to Maine — can you recall a real “fish out of water” moment when you realized you were now in a very different place with a lot fewer Jews?
Our first winter in Maine we hosted a Hanukkah party at our house, and invited lots of people we’d met but didn’t yet know well. Several guests told me it was their first ever Hanukkah party. (The same thing would happen with our first seder.) Which doesn’t sound strange to me now, but did 10 years ago, coming from Brooklyn!
In the book there is a lovely rabbi who helps comfort the family, especially as they deal with antisemitism in the town. Have you been able to find a Jewish community in Maine?
Rabbi Sarah Abraham in “Hazel Says No” is inspired by my very real friend and neighbor Rabbi Rachel Issacs, the rabbi of our central Maine synagogue, who teaches at Colby College and is the executive director of the Center for Small Town Jewish Life. (You may have read this?) Before deciding to move here, I met with Rachel and her wife Melanie Weiss for coffee on a visit and learned that — surprisingly — there’s a longstanding Jewish community in Waterville, Maine. The synagogue has been around for over 100 years, and the community for longer than that.
Hazel takes a meeting with an agent in a magical New York City establishment called Schvitzhaus. Why isn’t Schvitzhaus real? Can you give us your elevator pitch so we can forward it to the appropriate investors?
Um, yes please. Schvitzhaus is — or could be — a coworking bathhouse complete with all manner of saunas, cold plunge, hot tubs and scrub offerings, plus a library lounge, broth/juice bar and sit-down cafe. Because we want to schvitz and do our creative business while we’re schvitzing. And then we want to eat ancient grains and a German pretzel at Café Nosh.
How many Jewish foods did you go through until you landed on naming the dog in the book Pickle?
Haha! So many. Latke, Bagel, Matzah, etc. I went with Pickle because 1. I love a sour pickle, and missed them when I moved, but 2. Then Melanie Weiss (see above) organized a pickle making workshop and that pretty much sold me on the promise and possibilities of Jewish Maine life. Also, 3. The Greenberg Blums move from Brooklyn to Maine — and find themselves in a major, serious pickle.
P.S. My dog Frannie walked into my office when I got to this question, no joke.
Hey Alma gets mentioned in the book as one of the publications that reaches out to Hazel for a story (thank you very much, we’ll never get over it). What do you imagine the Hey Alma headline would be about Hazel?
18 Things to Know About the 18-Year-Old Jewish Brooklyn-To-Maine Activist Who Got Her Predator Principal Fired.
None of your characters feel like stereotypically Jewish characters, which is so refreshing. Was that something you had in mind while writing?
Oh, thank you! So much of writing “Hazel” was (creatively) hard, but that part came naturally. Jewish stereotypes — stereotypes period — are nails on the chalkboard for me, the character equivalent of the laziest cliché writing. Avoiding them wasn’t something I had to try to do.
The Greenberg Blums aren’t my family, of course, but I really wanted to try and capture the humor and sharpness and sweetness of our banter. I wanted the Greenberg Blums to feel very Jewish, but not necessarily in a regular synagogue-attending or celebrating-all-the-Jewish-holidays kind of way. More in a Jewish humor and ethos and people of the book sort of way. That’s true to how I express my Jewishness.
Claire, the clothing designer mom, Gus, the American Studies professor dad, Wolf, the precocious tween and maybe most of all his big sister, Hazel, are each fundamentally trying to figure out how to be good, do the right thing and help heal a broken world. To me, that’s very Jewish.
Are there any good bagels in Maine?
OK, the best bagels are in Maine. Forage Market bagels in Portland and Lewiston. Naturally leavened (whatever that means!), aged, boiled and then baked in a super-hot wood-fired oven. Fittingly, geographically speaking, they are the perfect marriage of a New York and Montreal style bagel. We had them at my son’s bar mitzvah. If you don’t believe me, believe Savuer!
Our local, Sunrise Bagel, has lines out the door, and challah on Fridays.
Is there any good matzah ball soup in Maine?
Because I don’t eat chicken, my matzah ball soup options are limited even in New York. Lucky for me, my husband Neil makes a delicious — and fluffy! — vegetarian matzah ball soup. He also makes a mean latke, with a many decades old and still somehow in one piece New York Times recipe of his mother’s. Our first year in town, Neil brought his latkes to the synagogue’s competition. Everyone else had fancy and interesting dips and accompaniments; we didn’t even know that was a thing. Neil’s latkes were old school and served with plain applesauce on the side. The contest was anonymous, and Neil’s won. Now my teenager and I insist on his “award winning” latkes when we need the ultimate comfort food.
Did Hazel have a bat mitzvah? If so, what was her theme?
Hazel took group Hebrew School classes and then did her bat mitzvah prep with a School for Creative Judaism type of program. The party theme was reading. Guests were asked to bring a favorite novel or two to gift to another guest. Hazel’s reception was at S&P Lunch, afterhours. (Note: S&P Lunch wasn’t around in the current form when Hazel would have had her bat mitzvah, but this is fiction.)
What’s the most Jewish thing you did this week? (This interview doesn’t count.)
Probably reading “The Safekeep” by Yael van der Wouden, and then texting my friends (Jewish and not Jewish) and telling them they needed to trust me, not look up anything about it (spoilers) and just read it immediately.
OK wait, no. It was when I was swimming out to the center of Lily Pond in Deer Isle (two hours from my house) with my two dime store noodles, and then on the way back in the shallow end met a mom and her young daughter who live in San Francisco but summer in Maine and have deep Jewish roots in Waterville, where I live. She’s now planning to have her entire extended Jewish Maine family read “Hazel Says No.” That was the most Jewish thing! (And then I told her she had to read “The Safekeep”…)
This is obviously a book for everyone, but is there anything in particular you hope Jewish readers get out of it?
There are so many ways to be Jewish. You can be Jewish in Brooklyn. You can be Jewish in Maine. You can be Jewish and observant and/or synagogue attending. You can be equally Jewish in a bookstore or library or classroom or kitchen, on a farm, creating art or literature or doing stand-up — or maybe most of all, standing up against injustice and authoritarianism.
