In his new book, A Place of Exodus: Home, Memory, and Texas, David Biespiel remembers growing up in Meyerland, Houston’s historically Jewish neighborhood; leaving Texas after a public quarrel with his rabbi; and returning years later. A Place of Exodus is excerpted here. Buy the book on Bookshop, or join Biespiel on October 8 for conversation with “Between the Books” podcast host David Naimon, a virtual event hosted by Powell’s City of Books. This excerpt has been lightly edited.
I never told anyone this, but for a time I thought I would be a rabbi when I grew up. Not that I thought about it every day, but especially during my teenage years, by which time it was already too late.
Not what you’d think of when you imagine the mystique of a deep-down Texas childhood, with the cattle and pump jacks and muggy vastness, pine pollen and red dirt, farm-to-market roads stitching together lonesome towns that get hotter after the sun sets, evangelical radio, Friday night football, Lone Star flags flying over all the gas stations, eighty thousand miles of freeways and billboards, boots and belts and 10-gallon hats.
