"Best novel I've read all year...sophisticated and engaging...it treats an endlessly tangled topic—relations between Palestinian Arabs and Jews—with intelligence and originality...a manifestly terrific novel!" --Wall Street Journal
Just released: "In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist" with its short story sequel, "In the Rebbetzin's Courtyard"
Brokenhearted haberdasher Isaac Markowitz has fled the Lower East Side for Israel, where he now assists a renowned elderly rabbi who tends to the hungry and hopeless in his courtyard. Tamar is an American hipster-turned-observant Jew who has come to Jerusalem to find a devout man to spend her life with. And Mustafa, a devoted Muslim, works as a janitor at the Temple Mount, also known as al-Aqsa, a site holy to both faiths.
After Mustafa finds a shard of pottery that may date back to the ancient era of the First Temple, he brings it to Isaac. But this simple act of friendship will lead Isaac into Israel's criminal underworld, put Mustafa in lethal danger, and send Tamar on a quest to save them both . . .
This edition also includes "The Rebbetzin's Courtyard," a short-story sequel to In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist.
Ruchama Feuerman grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland. After high school, Feuerman moved to Israel, where she lived for ten years and taught Torah to newly religious women. Dubbed a "Jewish Jane Austen" by Kirkus Reviews, Feuerman's novels have earned the praise of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Her stories and essays have appeared in many publications, including the New York Times.
Named one of "31 books that will restore your faith in humanity" by Buzzfeed, and one of "37 books with plot twists that will blow your mind" also by Buzzfeed.
"A beautiful novel that coils the history and mystery of Jerusalem into a private and vivid tale of personal dignity, ownership, love-- and the overlap of all three, the space we call the soul."
R