Jewish Book Council
In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist
Ruchama
Feuerman
New York Review of Books, 2013. 260 pp. US$9.99
Set
in Jerusalem, In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist is the story of a
kabbalist's assistant, a motorcycle-riding striking young woman, and a
gimp-legged Arab janitor whose lives become intertwined romantically,
spiritually, and dangerously in the courtyard of an elderly kabbalist. Isaac,
formerly a haberdasher from the Lower East Side, now an assistant to a frail
kabbalist, has to serve religion retail and is not at all sure how to do it.
Mustafa, gimp-legged, an outcast who works as a janitor on the Temple Mount, is
trapped in impossible contradiction: to be a good son to his people or a great
man to himself. And red-headed, beautiful Tamar, in her quest for a sanctified
life, is disturbing the peace of one of Jerusalem's most uptight bachelors. At once a suspense thriller, a courtship tale, and a clash between civilizations. Researching the novel led Ruchama to Israeli ex-convicts, Arab laborers, kabbalists, archeologists, Temple Mount police men, Muslim dating websites, soup kitchens, and a Jewish funeral home, which inspired her to volunteer at the Hevra Kadisha.
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