Ruchama King Feuerman, often tagged as the Jewish Jane Austen, is the author of the celebrated novel “Seven Blessings,” (St. Martin's Press) and lived in Israel for ten years where she studied and taught Torah at various women’s institutions. The Wall Street Journal described her recently published novel, In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist, as “sophisticated and engaging…brilliant…a manifestly terrific novel!” and the reviewer tweeted it was the best novel he’s read in ages. It has been garnering rave reviews from national and Jewish publications.
Set in Jerusalem, In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist is the story of former Lower East Side haberdasher Isaac, now an assistant to an elderly mystical rabbi; Mustafa, a physically deformed Arab janitor who works on the Temple Mount; and Tamar, a newly religious American hipster searching for a spiritual man. As these characters – Muslim and Jewish; prophets and lost souls – move through their world, they are never sure if they will fall prey to the cruel tricks of luck or be sheltered by a higher power.
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