"The Conversion of the Jews"

Little Ozzie Freedman is the kind of boy who, because of his independent spirit and relentlessly inquiring intellect, is constantly getting into trouble with his elders. The framework for "The Conversion of the Jews" is the heder, or Hebrew school, Ozzie attends and where he comes into conflict with his teacher, Rabbi Binder. What gets Ozzie into trouble is his insistence on following the logic of scripture even to the point of recognizing the possibility of a Virgin Birth. For a Jewish rabbi teaching a class of would-be bar mitzvah boys, this is surely asking too much. That Jesus was "historical. . . a person that lived like you and me" is as far as Rabbi Binder is willing to go. He insists that Jesus's birth, like anyone else's, had to come through human intercourse, not divine intervention. But Ozzie cannot resist the force of logic: if God could "create heaven and earth in six days, and make all the animals and the fish and the light in six days—the light especially," then he asks Rabbi Binder "why couldn't He let a woman have a baby without intercourse." For a third time Ozzie's mother is summoned to school to see the rabbi.

Roth plays Ozzie's stubborn inquisitiveness off against his friend Itzie's more practical, wise-guy attitudes and coarser diction: "Itzie preferred to keep his mother in the kitchen"; '"Sure it's impossible. That stuffs all bull. To have a baby you gotta get laid,' Itzie theologized." The contrast is comic, underscored by Itzie's amazement, which he expresses in humorous gestures and exclamations of disbelief at his friend's temerity. But worse—or better—is yet to come.

That Friday night Ozzie resolves to tell his widowed mother about the summons to see Rabbi Binder, but not before she lights the Sabbath candles. A "round, tired, grayhaired penguin of a woman," in the act of lighting the candles she is transformed for Ozzie into a radiant being "who knew momentarily that God could do anything." He is therefore all the more astonished when, after he tells her about what has happened at heder, for the first time in their life together she hits him across the face with her hand.

The comic contrast of earlier episodes between Ozzie and Itzie now turns somber. Tension mounts on the following Wednesday at heder when, during "free-discussion" time, Rabbi Binder calls on Ozzie to give the class "the advantage of his thought." Ozzie at first resists but, on repeated provocation from the rabbi, demands, "Why can't He make anything He wants to make!" The question causes a commotion in the class, and Ozzie cries out repeatedly, "You don't know, you don't know," until, probably by accident, Rabbi Binder's hand catches Ozzie squarely on the nose, making it bleed.

In the ensuing uproar Ozzie runs onto the roof and locks the door behind him. He has no thoughts of suicide, but the image of him several stories up on top of the building strikes fear in the hearts of all who behold him. Arriving for her appointment, Ozzie's mother is instead greeted by her son on the roof, a crowd gathered below, fire trucks clanging, and a net spread out to catch the boy if he jumps. What a surprise! All pleas for Ozzie to come down fail, and Rabbi Binder's threats—"I'll give you three to come down"—are ludicrous. Mrs. Freedman's cry that her boy not be a martyr is taken over by Ozzie's classmates, who, led by Itzie and not understanding the term, egg him on with "Be a Martin, be a Martin."

The farcical situation evokes increasing humor but seriousness too, as in the growing darkness of the autumn evening Ozzie makes first Rabbi Binder and then everyone else, including his mother, get on their knees. In this posture of gentile prayer Ozzie makes the rabbi, his mother, and even the poor old sexton, Yakov Blotnik, confess that "God can do Anything"—even make a child without intercourse. By now everyone is kneeling, and Ozzie finally extracts their promise never to "hit anybody about God." Only then does he jump "right into the center of the yellow net that glowed in the evening's edge like an overgrown halo."

Some critics, while generally admiring Roth's stories, find them a little too neat, too pat. Alfred Kazin, for example, believes that in "The Conversion of the Jews" Roth is too anxious not only to dramatize the conflict but to make the issue "absolutely clear"; he needs to find the creative writer's delight in "life for its own sake" and become less concerned with the design of his fable ["Tough-Minded Mr. Roth," Contemporaries, 1962]. But Kazin seems to miss the point here: in the world of the child, simplicity rules, as it does for Ozzie Freedman. Therein also lies the humor of the story and its import: adult sophistications and their consequences are finally no match for the singlemindedness and courage of a little boy, for whom the logic of God's omnipotence and mercy overwhelms all other considerations. That recognition, literally and figuratively, brings the others to their knees.