Royal octavo, hardcover, pages lightly age toned else fine in near fine black pictorial dj. First edition, first printing. 269pp An inside look at the power politics of a congregation and what happens to a Rabbi when his tenets are put to the ultimate test. A novel of the Rabbi's adultery with a shicksa.

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Bibliographic Details

Title: THE CONGREGATION
Publisher: NY, Putnam Pub Group, 1985. 0
Publication Date: 1985
Language: English
ISBN 10: 0399130225
ISBN 13: 9780399130229
Binding: Hardcover
Edition: 1st Edition
Condition: Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Book Type: Book

About this title

Synopsis

Possessed by ambition and made vulnerable by his deteriorating marriage to Naomi, Rabbi David Benjamin, spiritual leader of Detroit's Temple Shalom, falls in love with a beautiful Gentile woman

Reviews

There ought to be a special place reserved in the hereafter for characters who've been unfairly abused in their fictional worlds. Young rabbi David Benjamin is a case in point. On one hand, he's required to be an idealistic, charismatic leader of a Detroit congregation, an intellectual and an honored member of the community; on the other, an unwilling adulterer, an unwitting particpant in a Mafia-run operation and an embezzler of Temple Beth Sinai's funds. Because David is never more than a cardboard character, he moves through the narrative as the feckless victim of one implausible circumstance after another. There are some risible moments (however unintentioned) in which the rabbi seems to be departing this novel for one of Barbara Cartland's: his mistress comes equipped with "titian hair, swan's-neck arms" and a voice capable of "whimpering a wind-chime of pleasure." Readers who are tittilated by tales of a clergyman's fall from grace will probably love every improbable page. Levine is a rabbi at the University of Pennsylvania. December 11
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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