In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist

by Ruchama King Feuerman

National Jewish Book Award A “sophisticated and engaging” novel of three innocents drawn into a criminal scheme in modern-day Jerusalem (The Wall Street Journal).

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.

“How do people get along when they have been taught they can’t? . . . [A] lively, witty, and entertaining novel . . . hard to put down.” —Alice Elliott Dark, author of Fellowship Point and In The Gloaming

“Beautifully detailed and vivid . . . a delicate balance of courtship tale and thriller.” —Dallas Morning News

“Confused about the background of the Gaza conflict? This vibrant evocation of modern Jerusalem may shed some light.” —Daily Mail

“A story that is spiritually generous and astutely realistic about an Arab-Israeli and an Israeli-Jew, who may be the most unlikely pair of friends we’ve seen in current fiction.” —The Brooklyn Rail

“The best novel I’ve read all year.” —The Wall Street Journal

Genres: Fiction

350 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Ruchama King Feuerman was born in Nashville, grew up in Virginia and Maryland, and when she was seventeen, bought a one-way ticket to Israel to seek her spiritual fortune. Seven Blessings (St. Martin’s Press), her celebrated first novel about match-making, earned her the praise of the New York Times and the Dallas Morning News, and Kirkus Reviews dubbed her "the Jewish Jane Austen." She wrote her second novel, In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist, with the help of grants from the Christopher Isherwood Foundation and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and it will be published in September 2013 by NYRB Lit, a new e-book series from the New York Review of Books devoted to publishing contemporary books of literary merit from around the world. Her stories and essays have appeared in numerous places, including the New York Times, and she is a winner of the 2012 Moment Fiction contest, judged by the novelist Walter Mosley.

Reviews

[Zhelana · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've heard of a slow burn, but this is ridiculous. I was promised a story about the criminal underworld of Jerusalem, but 50% of the way into the book we're still faffing around trying to figure out what to do with this piece of pottery that supposedly leads these characters there. The entire first half of this book should have been a chapter, at most and maybe this should have been a short story. i've been told this is a good book, and that's why I stuck with it for so long, but I really... i just can't. learn some pacing, get an editor, shrink the entire first half into one chapter, figure out what you want to write about and then get to the point, I don't know. Something. Something other than what got published here.

[Challenger · Rating 4 out of 5]

The short-story sequel, “The Rebbetzin’s Courtyard,” included in these Open Road Media editions of In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist is a longer, reworked version of her short story, “Somehow They Get into You,” which was a finalist in Narrative Magazine's Winter 2017 Story Contest. You can join for free to read “Somehow They Get into You” online at the magazine's website.

“The Rebbetzin’s Courtyard” was first released as an Audiobook, The Rebbetzin’s Courtyard, read by Sam Guncler.

[G.P. Gottlieb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mustafa was born with a twisted neck and treated with disdain throughout his life. He works long hours as a janitor on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Isaac is a religiously observant new immigrant who stumbles into a position as assistant to a famous kabbalist known for curing the uncurable. Their chance encounter could lead to an international incident in this charming tale about flawed people trying to get by during tense times. I was honored to interview the author: https://newbooksnetwork.com/in-the-co...