What would happen if the United States split into two countries, each fully expressing its own values and rejecting those they disagree with? The Jewish YA novel The Papercutter by Cindy Rizzo expores this question, along with a another: what would happen to the Jews in these divided states?

The teens in this story live one generation after a great split in American society. The G-d Fearing States (GFS) have promised the Jews religious freedom, and virtually all Orthodox Jews settled there. The United Progressive Regions (UPR), a bastion of technology, environmental consciousness and gender fluidity, is the home of liberal Jews. The state of Ohio is divided, so when Binyamin Fine chose to become more religious, he moved, married and has raised his family in the GFS in southern Ohio. His parents and teen younger sister, Dani, live in the north.

A pen pal program is established to bridge the cultural and spiritual gap between GFS and UPR Jews, and liberal Dani is paired with Jeffrey Schwartz, an Orthodox teen boy in the GFS. He and his friends, the Orthodox teens of the GFS, are often devoted to their faith, skeptical about their country’s dogmas, and frightened by increasing acts of anti-semitism in the country where they were promised safety.

One of Jeffrey’s friends, Judith Braverman, is gifted at the Jewish art of papercutting, creating extraordinary and intricate designs. She can also see people’s souls and know whether they are good or bad. Jeffrey has the most powerfully good soul she has ever seen. He also has a secret. He’s gay, and hiding it in a community that would never accept him for who he really is.

As Dani and Jeffrey correspond through the penpal program, the teens conceive of a way to communicate by code, using Dani’s technology and Judith’s papercutting skills. Soon, their efforts play an important role in communications between Jewish communities, which might just
be needed to ensure all of their safety.

The Papercutter is an unusual novel in that many of the most important characters are gay and lesbian. As a straight woman, I found their experience compelling and well-developed. Being queer is certainly not always easy, even in communities that welcome it — nearly impossible in
those that do not. For that reason, I think the book is an important read for queer Jews, who will surely see themselves in it — and for all other teen Jews, who will gain a deeper understanding of the experience.

Today, we can see the enormous political and cultural rift between Orthodox and liberal Jews, which parallels the polarization in American society and around the world. And yet, when it comes down to it, we’re family. This story, in which teen Jews of different religious perspectives take care of one another, helped me believe in the unity of the Jewish people, and that we can look to each other and look out for each other in times of danger, in spite of our differences.
If only it didn’t require danger for us to see that we’re really one people. May it one day be so.

Content note: the book contains one brief memory of sexual assault of a male teen by another male teen.

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Evonne Marzouk grew up in Philadelphia and received a B.A. from the Johns Hopkins University in the Writing Seminars program, with a minor in Religious Studies. She has worked on international policy and communications projects for two decades as an employee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. From 2004-2014, Evonne founded and served as executive director of Canfei Nesharim (recently merged with GrowTorah), an organization that teaches Jewish wisdom about protecting the environment, and she co-edited Uplifting People and Planet, a collection of Jewish environmental core teachings, published in 2014. Her first novel, The Prophetess, was published by Bancroft Press in 2019. Follow her on instagram at @StillEvonne.