I ordered “Andre, As I Knew Him” mostly to support a fellow writer and old friend, Dorit (Doris to me) Edut, never dreaming I would find this biographical sketch and memoir as engaging, poignant — and in parts even fascinating — as I did.
I’d known Doris for years, long before she temporarily left her home and Israeli husband in Detroit for four years to study to become a rabbi in New York City. When she wrote me in February that she’d “finally” finished the book, 18 years after the events in its final pages, I knew that “Andre” must contain something compelling enough to merit such determination. Maybe it was the surprising coincidence revealed to Edut by Andre’s sister after his death — that the young, Bolivian-born, undocumented superintendent of her New York apartment building, whom she first met as he almost passed her on his bicycle on a busy New York street, was Jewish too.
The book is peppered with moments like this, with Edut at times noting something compelling her to ask questions and make remarks to Andre that piqued his revelations and earned his trust. She writes of her experience counseling troubled urban families, including gang members, yet Andre seems very different. As Andre’s tenant, Edut relied on him for fixing her faucet. And as his burgeoning non-romantic friend, she leaned on him for a fun introduction to New York, which grew into a bond so deep that it ended with her arranging for the headstone of his grave in an interfaith cemetery in Queens.
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