In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist - Softcover

The best novel I read all year.

a....testament to the power of the imagination...a rare talent.

It s a sophisticated and engaging book. Moreover, it treats an endlessly tangled topic relations between Palestinian Arabs and Jews with intelligence and originality. The narration seamlessly moves between Isaac and Mustafa, and the author brings the work s interwoven stories to a brilliant climactic end....a manifestly terrific novel.

Feuerman demonstrates no small amount of moxie. She provides us with a rather unusual fictional twist on the hackneyed subject of Arab-Jewish relations in the complex reality of Jerusalem....the writing is punchy and often gritty, compassionate without being sentimental. Writers often imbue Jerusalem with a mystical, mysterious aura....Feuerman s eye, in contrast, tends here toward the earthy and does not shy away from the less aesthetic sides of life....Feuerman has a talent for striking images and innovative language that, unlike in some writing, does not obstruct the reading but rather does what it should add literary pleasure....In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist is ultimately a story of love transcending deformity, both inner and outer. It is a book that speaks of seeing beyond appearances...

Feuerman is certainly worthy of attention. Her first novel, Seven Blessings, was published by St. Martin s Press, and one reviewer hailed her as the Jewish Jane Austen. Her new book is more nearly a thriller, although it is, like her earlier work, much concerned with romantic intrigue, too....One of the great pleasures of her novel, in fact, is her rich and vivid evocation of contemporary Jerusalem, and especially the people and places in Jerusalem that would not be out of place in a novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer...Along the way, Feuerman displays a sharp eye for the rhythms of real life in Jerusalem...Here the author shows that she may be the Jewish Jane Austen, but she is also something of a Jewish Graham Greene.

In Ruchama King Feuerman s second novel, she creates a compelling world within a world in Jerusalem. She conveys spiritual longings and the yearnings for human connection, all informed by the heavenly city and its mysteries.

The unlikely friendship of an intellectual New York Jew and a working-class Jerusalem Arab drives Feuerman s evocative second novel...This friendship is all the more unlikely because it occurs in the divided city of Jerusalem... The city itself emerges as a character: its climate and topography are depicted with a lyricism that contrasts with the area s political tension. [The] story unfolds as a belated coming-of-age tale....[written in a] quiet, lovely mood.

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.

n the Courtyard of the Kabbalist is a beautifully written, emotionally evocative novel enriched by fascinating characters and an unparalleled portrait of the magical city that is Jerusalem.

Absorbing, fascinating, intriguing and more, written by a creative storyteller with an amazing skill for originality.

In her irresistible novel In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist, Ruchama King Feuerman writes with such contagious affection --The Wall Street Journal