Sarah Hurwitz calls her first book, “Here All Along,” a “love letter” to Jewish tradition. Describing a journey begun when she worked as a speechwriter at the White House— first for President Barack Obama and later for First Lady Michele Obama — the book was a celebration of her rediscovering Judaism as a thirty-something who grew up with what she describes as a “thin” Jewish identity.

But if that book was sunny, her new book explores the shadows and storm clouds of Jewish belonging. “As a Jew: Reclaiming Our Story from Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us,” confronts the challenges of being Jewish at a time of rising antisemitism, a polarizing debate over Israel, and pressures and temptations that keep many Jews from appreciating a tradition that belongs to them.

Shifting the focus from personal discovery to a host of contemporary issues, “As a Jew” is both a primer and a polemic, explaining Jewish history, texts and practices in order to counter misinformation and inspire readers.

“We need to know our story. We need to know our history. We need to know our traditions,” she said in an interview on Thursday. “We need to know what we love about being Jews, so that when people come to us and they say, ‘Judaism is violent and vengeful and sexist and has a cruel God and is unspiritual,’ we can say that’s not true.”

The book also draws on her recent training and experience as a hospital chaplain, volunteering on the oncology floor of a hospital in the Washington, D.C. area, where she lives.

Hurwitz, 44, is a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Law School. She also served as a speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore and in Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. In January, she plans to start training for the rabbinate at the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Beit Midrash for New North American Rabbis.

We spoke at a livestreamed “Folio” event presented by the New York Jewish Week and UJA-Federation of New York. Hurwitz discussed her time in the Obama White House, what she’s learned from meeting with college students struggling with antisemitism, and the challenges of writing a Jewish book in the post-Oct. 7 moment.

Our conversation was edited for length and clarity. To watch the full conversation, go here.

Your first book, “Here All Along,” was about your return to Jewish learning. What hadn’t you said in that first book that you felt compelled to say now? And how does “As a Jew” extend or challenge the earlier journey?

My first very much a love letter to Jewish tradition, and this book is much more of a polemic. That first book really reflected me at the age of 36 rediscovering Jewish tradition, having grown up with this very thin kind of Jewish identity.

In this new book, I began to really ask the question, why did I see so little of Jewish tradition growing up, why did I have to wait until age 36 to actually discover so much of our tradition? Why was my identity so apologetic, so kind of humiliating and, having grown up in a Christian country, how much of my approach to Judaism was really through a Christian lens? This book really dives into those questions at a time of rising antisemitism, where Jews need to start thinking about these things.

What does it mean to be apologetic? How did the Christian lens distort your understanding of Judaism?

I certainly believed that Christianity is a religion of love, but Judaism is really a religion of law. And I really did buy that, that ours is a kind of weedy, legalistic, nitpicky tradition with this angry, vengeful god. I mean, that is just classic Christian anti-Judaism. I also used to think this world is carnal, degraded, inferior, kind of gross, and the goal of spirituality was to transcend them. That is not a central Jewish idea at all. That is not what Jewish spirituality is. If you read the Torah, our core sacred text, you’re going to find a great deal about our bodies, but how we treat them, about really contemplating how they are quite sacred.

Sarah Hurwitz (left), a former speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama, does a “gazing exercise” with rabbinical student Lily Solochek at Romemu Yeshiva in New York, N.Y. on July 16, 2019. (Ben Sales)

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