Julian Treslove isn’t Jewish, but he is fascinated by Jews,
especially his two best friends Sam Finkler and Libor Sevcik.
Julian even begins to imagine that he actually might be Jewish
himself. Sam Finkler, on the other hand, exhibits a Jewish self-
hatred that Julian simply cannot fathom. Julian, Sam, and Libor
are the central characters of Howard Jacobson’s acclaimed novel
The Finkler Question, which explores themes of Jewish identity,
Jewish self-hatred, and anti-Semitism through the eyes of the
trio of friends. The winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize – one
of England’s most prestigious literary honors – The Finkler
Question is a book filled with ongoing ironies. One of them is
that Julian continues to express a respect and sincere curiosity
about Judaism that his Jewish friends do not share. When Julian
is mugged one night on a London street, he believes it was an
anti-Semitic attack, and takes it as a message that he may be
Jewish after all. With this new-found, possible identity, he
attempts to understan