The Rabbi Who Prayed for the City

Rabbi Vivian Mystery #2

by Rachel Sharona Lewis

Seven years into Rabbi Vivian's tenure at Beth Abraham, the congregation's senior rabbi is finally talking about retirement. But for now, Vivian is still stuck with his priorities...and with the congregants who call him " the Rabbi." Beyond the synagogue walls, the city's Office of Climate Resiliency is facing down some disturbing statistics, and a tech company new to town is building robots to settle Mars - and join Israel's military. Meanwhile, Vivian's attempts to steer her congregation's reactions to all this hardly leave her enough time to address the other big question that's nagging at Should she and her wife try to have a kid? And if so...what makes the perfect sperm donor? When a multimillion-dollar robot goes missing, and there are only days to find it before a huge hurricane hits Providence, the city - and Beth Abraham - are tested in every way. Both a community macher and a close personal friend of Vivian's get swept up in the mystery...along with Vivian herself. Who's really responsible for what happened - and who will be forced to take the blame? And what will the city, the congregation, and Rabbi Vivian's life look like in the aftermath of it all?

Genres: Judaism, Novels, Mystery

288 pages, Paperback

Published July 18, 2023

Reviews

[Nadav David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, and entertaining ride, with many references to our Jewish lefty community, and sweet plot lines on queer family, facing crisis together, and building resilient communities. Mazal tov, Rachie, on bringing another book into the world!

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rabbis! Robots! Category 4 hurricanes! Congregational board meetings! Sperm donors! Urban climate resiliency planning! Is there anything The Rabbi Who Prayed for the City doesn’t have?

Lewis has created a really compelling protagonist in the person of Rabbi Vivian, and I hope that this second book in her series is not the last. Ultimately, this is a book about how we respect tradition and the past while creating the future, and how do you balance the needs of your immediate community with the larger community.

[Dennis Fischman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not a murder mystery, even though there's a crime to be solved. It's an exploration of moral and personal issues in the life of a particular synagogue community, a small city (Providence, RI, which I just visited for its Waterfire Festival), and our rapidly changing world. Note that it takes place after the Covid vaccine has been widely used but--very important--before the attack by Hamas on Israel in October 2023. The discussions within the synagogue AND within the technology company would be significantly changed if it had been published any later.

You could read this as a stand-alone, but I found that knowing the characters and how their relationships developed in the first book, The Rabbi Who Prayed with Fire, deepened my appreciation for the sequel.

[Margaret Klein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second in a series, these books are like reading a modern day Kemelman's Rabbi Small mysteries. This series, written by a rabbi, features Rabbi Vivian in Providence, RI. She is gay, married to the woman who is running the Office of Climate Resiliency. Providence is about to experience a life threatening hurricane and Karla's office is gearing up. And Beth Abraham will have to figure out what role they will play.
This is a novel that is thoroughly current and resonates with me as a rabbi deeply. What role do we play as rabbis, as congregations, as Jews in the wider community. What do we do about climate change? Taking care of our neighbors? Our relationship to Israel? AI? Where is the robot? What is reconciliation or starting over?

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rabbi Vivian Green is back in “The Rabbi Who Prayed for the City: A Rabbi Vivian Mystery” by Rachel Sharona Lewis (LadiesLadies Press). The senior rabbi at Beth Abraham in Providence, RI, where Vivian works, is in his last year before retirement and Vivian has agreed to become the next senior rabbi. She’s unsure about how she feels about the future: she has made progress in her social action agenda, but struggles to balance her ideas with those of the congregation, particularly about whether to invest money in local community action or in Israel.
See the rest of my review at https://www.thereportergroup.org/book...

[Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rachel Sharona Lewis had a tough task with her first novel: to create a worthy successor to Harry Kemelman’s Rabbi Small. She set herself an arguably more difficult task with her second novel — to create a worthy successor to her first Rabbi Vivian Green novel — and she succeeded beyond expectations. It’s impossible not to think the world of Rabbi Green, and it’s hard not to wish I could attend her Congregation Beth Abraham in Providence!

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author touched on many social issues of our days. Too many for this reader to focus. I appreciated the story line about building their family.

[Vivian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is a little too much PC.