I get a ton of criticism for writing so much in the first person. The owner of Protocols, Steven I. Weiss, writes me Sunday night, "As always, I want to emphasize with you that you can do great work in Jewish journalism. I'm still waiting for that one day without the pronoun "I"."
Steven, it is not the voice that matters as much as the quality. First person is a perfectly wonderful way to tell a story so long as the writer is engaged in meaningful conflict that results in a realization.
Gene Lichtenstein wrote in last week's issue of The Jewish Week: "Two years ago at a Hollywood screenwriters’ conference, the then head of the Writers Guild, Daniel Petrie Jr., remarked to this reporter that he had no idea how many screenwriters were Jewish, but in any event it was not a significant number."
The use of third person did not make this a superior story.
The overwhelming amount of Jewish journalism is written in third-person, and, frankly, it sucks.
I may attend a Jewish event, and the most interest thing that happens there is the variety of my internal states.
I do not consider the people I write about to always be more compelling than myself, just as I do not always view myself as more interesting than the people I write about.
The use of first person is fine if the writer is a major and compelling part of a story.
If I am not for myself, who will be? But if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?
