In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist - Tapa blanda

"...a terrific piece of storytelling...A novel about lonely people seeking love becomes something much more interesting, a book about people looking for fulfilment, and finding a way of doing something deeply meaningful with their lives. By the end, even the most cynical will need a good stack of tissues."

"Confused about the background to the Gaza conflict?  This vibrant evocation of modern Jerusalem may shed some light."

Romantic, suspenseful and insightful.

...[a] beguiling novel...Feuerman writes with grace and wit...'In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist' is as wise as it is heartfelt.

A delicate balance of courtship tale and thriller. . . beautifully detailed and vivid. . . I strongly recommend it.

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 this 2013 National Jewish Book Award Finalist, an eczema-riddled Lower East Side haberdasher, Isaac Markowitz, moves to Israel to repair  his broken heart and becomes, much to his own surprise, the assistant to a famous old rabbi who daily dispenses wisdom (and soup) to the troubled souls who wash up in his courtyard. It is there that he meets the flame-haired Tamar, a newly religious young American hipster on a mission to live a spiritual life with a spiritual man. Into both of their lives comes Mustafa, a devout Muslim, deformed at birth, a janitor who works on the Temple Mount, holy to both Muslims and Jews. When Mustafa finds an ancient shard of pottery that may date back to the first temple, he brings it to Isaac in friendship.  That gesture sets in motion a series of events that land Isaac in  the company of Israel's worst criminal riff raff, put Mustafa in mortal danger, and Tamar trying to save them both.

As these characters - immigrants and natives; Muslim and Jewish; prophets and lost souls - move through their world, they are never sure if they will fall prey to the cruel tricks of luck or be sheltered by a higher power.