Not that Jewishness is entirely absent from Zoo Time. "You see — you're considerate. I think that's because you're a Jew," the assimilated Guy is informed by his adored (and non-Jewish) mother-in-law Poppy. Guy makes fun of the "genuine fired-up apocalyptic Jew, who thought about being Jewish every hour he was awake and most of the hours he wasn't" — until he discovers that his brother has become one. Jeffrey, normally dressed in an Alexander McQueen jacket, is now Yafet, a Homburg — wearing, bearded disciple of the Lubavitcher Rabbi Orlovsky. "You like writing about wild guys?" Yafet asks. "Well, who's wilder than a Jew?" And Guy ends up by wondering: "Had I missed out on my wildness by missing out on being Jewish?"

 The novel's message is that being Jewish is not only no obstacle to charity, it even gives Guy the subject he needs for his first bestseller The Good Woman. For Jacobson, being bookish and doing good are inseparable from being Jewish — whatever Oxfam may say.