Bee Season by Myla Goldberg (Published:May 2001)

"Bee Season" is the story a family who disintegrates as each of its members searches for spiritual enlightenment. It is a tale of a "normal" Jewish family that is not all that normal. It is a story of nine-year-old Eliza Naumann, an ordinary girl, whose unexpected victory in a district Spelling Bee, earns her a space in the national finals, and propels her family into emotional and spiritual disarray.

Saul Naumann, Eliza's father, a cantor and a scholar immersed the world of mystics, is not and never was aware of his wife's mental illness or his children's social ineptness.

Infatuated with mysticism, Saul fails to engage Judaism as a family unifier. Instead, smitten with Eliza's newly discovered talent, Saul brings her into his world of Kabbalah, while neglecting Aaron, who up until the "Bee" was the "favorite son." Aaron, stunned by his father's neglect, embarks on a search of his own, and eventually joins a Hare Krishna temple. And Miriam, the mentally and emotionally disturbed, brilliant lawyer, who never bonded with her husband or children, seeks "Tikun Olam" (literally perfecting the world) or perfection by thieving.

This story is a comment on the contemporary Jewish family whose wishes may be to maintain Judaism, yet lack the knowledge or commitment to so. When Judaism becomes an idea or an ideal rather than a way of life; when a "Divine Connection" is one of mysticism and elusive spirituality rather than the God in the here and now, Jewish identity evaporates. There's nothing intrinsically Jewish about Eliza or Aaron. There is nothing identifiably Jewish in Miriam. There is no warmth; there is no heart. There is emptiness.

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