Confessions of a Closet Catholic

Our group chose to meet outside of class at the library at 5:00. Our discussion was full of thoughtful conversation that could have easily fit together with what I assume other groups would have been talking about. We started our discussion talking about Justine’s relationships with other characters in the book. We began speaking about Justine’s relationship with her mother and how that affected her identity. We then moved to her special relationship she had with Bubbe. Lastly, we spoke about her relationship with the Rabbi and how each of these shaped her new found identity. They answered questions lingering in her mind and also steered her in new directions regarding her religion. I found that this actually led way to my question and Justine’s addictions to chocolate being a cover up for other emotional identity issues. The question I chose to raise was To what extent does Justine’s Jewish identity affect her views of herself? I felt that this fit in with what we were previously talking about because we were able to fit in Justine’s relationship with Helena and how that affects Justine’s view of herself. We then brought up the idea of chocolate fitting into Justine’s life. We all agreed that it seemed as though she almost always used it as a crutch to get through tough situations. We talked about certain foods that we found really gave us support while we were growing up but didn’t really make those foods connect to our religious identity…it more or less only fit in with our personal choice identity of what we enjoyed and where we found comfort. I discussed with the group how I was very impressed at Justine’s ability to independently research the different religions and how she even practiced the traditions before ever actually seeing them in action.



Our group brought up many different view points and it was interesting to listen to each persons individual story about the times when they questioned their own religion. I personally don’t ever remember wanting to switch over to something else, but I was curious about what the other religions practiced and how they were similar or different than my own. I think our discussion was a success and I look forward to sharing more of our groups ideas perhaps next week in class during discussion.