
When We're Born We Forget Everything
A Memoir
Alicia Jo Rabins(Author)
Penguin Young Readers (Publisher)
Will be published approx. on 3. March 2026
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-0-593-70216-1 (ISBN)
Description
From the creator of the internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter project Girls in Trouble, a memoir following her journey from a secular Jewish childhood to becoming a modern queer woman owning ancient teachings and finding her own meanings in them, refracted through feminist interpretations of the lives of Biblical women.
“Alicia Jo Rabins writes as if she’s in conversation with the divine itself. . . .This isn’t merely a book to be read—it’s a scripture for the searching heart, a reminder that the border between the human and the holy is, and always has been, porous.”
—Reza Aslan, author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
As a self-described ‘90s suburban high school weirdo, Alicia Jo Rabins spent her time practicing violin and smoking cigarettes behind the mall while secretly dreaming of setting out on a spiritual quest no one around her seemed to understand. She often found herself drawn to the more ritualistic and rigorous Judaism that her parents had abandoned to assimilate and “become American.” In college, a chance meeting led her on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to study rabbinical texts (and play bluegrass fiddle on the street for cash). But that two years of immersing herself in traditional observance was only the start of a journey full of twists and turns.
When We’re Born We Forget Everything follows Alicia’s relentless, often embarrassing, sometimes enlightening search for the sacred in everyday life as she tours America playing with a klezmer-punk band, falls in and out of love, scrapes through the initiations of motherhood, and witnesses the beauty—and danger—of mysticism. Rabins braids this personal narrative with the hidden stories of biblical women, uncovering a path of queer identity, feminist awakening, and spiritual self-invention. This lyrical, searching memoir is a meditation on longing, lineage, and what it takes to find meaning in a fractured world.
“Alicia Jo Rabins writes as if she’s in conversation with the divine itself. . . .This isn’t merely a book to be read—it’s a scripture for the searching heart, a reminder that the border between the human and the holy is, and always has been, porous.”
—Reza Aslan, author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
As a self-described ‘90s suburban high school weirdo, Alicia Jo Rabins spent her time practicing violin and smoking cigarettes behind the mall while secretly dreaming of setting out on a spiritual quest no one around her seemed to understand. She often found herself drawn to the more ritualistic and rigorous Judaism that her parents had abandoned to assimilate and “become American.” In college, a chance meeting led her on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to study rabbinical texts (and play bluegrass fiddle on the street for cash). But that two years of immersing herself in traditional observance was only the start of a journey full of twists and turns.
When We’re Born We Forget Everything follows Alicia’s relentless, often embarrassing, sometimes enlightening search for the sacred in everyday life as she tours America playing with a klezmer-punk band, falls in and out of love, scrapes through the initiations of motherhood, and witnesses the beauty—and danger—of mysticism. Rabins braids this personal narrative with the hidden stories of biblical women, uncovering a path of queer identity, feminist awakening, and spiritual self-invention. This lyrical, searching memoir is a meditation on longing, lineage, and what it takes to find meaning in a fractured world.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 196 mm
Width: 137 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
386 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-593-70216-1 (9780593702161)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
03/2026
Schocken
€16.99
Available for download
Person
Alicia Jo Rabins