In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist: A Novel

National Jewish Book Award Finalist: 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

© 2024 Open Road Media (Ebook): 9781504094146

Release date

Ebook: 16 April 2024