Rabbi

Rating:
Summary: Be aware of neonazis...
Review: Michael Kind, the main character in this book is a goodwill man that shows us his experiences as a rabbi in several U.S. communities. His commitment is love and he fights against social and religious obstacles. Is a very good novel, and this is a very good moment to understand (better if you are not hebrew or jewish) why the world needs to stop neonazis or any antisemitism position. Read it and you'll understand how a simple man, has pain as a legacy, has a God that is not always understood, belongs to a prosecuted race and a historical tragedy. But nevertheless thousands of years suffering the rabbi still keeps the hope alive, and the love that will eternally be...Noah Gordon is such a clever writter!

Rating:
Summary: Not so good!!
Review: This is the first book i have read from Noah Gordon, and I personally did not liked it. My twin sister read "The Physician" and "The Death Committee" and told that they were GREAT!! so I decided to buy this one... But it was a complete disappointment!! the first half was good, but the second one was so awful it took me weeks to finished it, only 1 or 2 pages per day... I just hope that his other books are as magnificent as my sister told me.

Rating:
Summary: A Very Nice Story
Review: This novel is not just the story of the Rabbi Michael Kind and his wife Leslie but the story of four generation of jews in United States different in their way of feel, believe, keep their faith and religious identity. A very well written novel full of descriptions where the retrospective technique help the reader to understand the present of the Rivkind-Kind family knowing the past of each other of the members of the story.

Rating:
Summary: First shall be last
Review: While this was Gordon's first novel, it was the last of his novels I read. Having read the other six first created some disappointment for me in this book. It is a well told story that moves the reader along at a gentle relaxed paced and challenges many of the themes that Gordon's later works also take on. Yet, I found myself wanting to know more about these people than Gordon gives us. Therefore, I cared less. I needed to know more about Michael and his break with Orthodoxy. Why Reform when the strongest influences in his life were Orthodox? Even Laslie's Orthodox conversion raises this question.

The relationship between Leslie and her minister father is only sketched out while Michael's relationship with Leslie's father is almost skipped completely.

The subtext of Michael wrestling with his Orthodox origins is almost lost. Michael Rivkind becomes Michael Kind for commericial reasons but then become Reb Kind which phonetically reaches back to his Orthodox origins. That his final temple is one wrestling with the question of Reform vs Orthodox is only fitting. Yet we are never told why Michael wrestles with the question.

The story is well told and enjoyable, but by the standards Gordon sets in his later works, incomplete. He does introduce us to some of the mysteries of Judaism. While not a coming of age or identity book as strong as Potok's works, it is a story worth reading. It demonstrates the promise of his future works.

Like Matters of the Heart, he at times gets bogged down in personal biases and the story goes off track. Perhaps, this is why his historical novels are true epics and the contemporary pieces seem to wander off point.

I may well have rated it higher if I had read it first before The Physician, Shaman, and The Last Jew. Its stronger than Death Committee and Matters of the Heart. and a nice precedent to Jerusalen Diamond. The body of work as a whole is outstanding with great books and strong stories. I recommend Gordon to all who love a good story teller

Rating:
Summary: First shall be last
Review: While this was Gordon's first novel, it was the last of his novels I read. Having read the other six first created some disappointment for me in this book. It is a well told story that moves the reader along at a gentle relaxed paced and challenges many of the themes that Gordon's later works also take on. Yet, I found myself wanting to know more about these people than Gordon gives us. Therefore, I cared less. I needed to know more about Michael and his break with Orthodoxy. Why Reform when the strongest influences in his life were Orthodox? Even Laslie's Orthodox conversion raises this question.

The relationship between Leslie and her minister father is only sketched out while Michael's relationship with Leslie's father is almost skipped completely.

The subtext of Michael wrestling with his Orthodox origins is almost lost. Michael Rivkind becomes Michael Kind for commericial reasons but then become Reb Kind which phonetically reaches back to his Orthodox origins. That his final temple is one wrestling with the question of Reform vs Orthodox is only fitting. Yet we are never told why Michael wrestles with the question.

The story is well told and enjoyable, but by the standards Gordon sets in his later works, incomplete. He does introduce us to some of the mysteries of Judaism. While not a coming of age or identity book as strong as Potok's works, it is a story worth reading. It demonstrates the promise of his future works.

Like Matters of the Heart, he at times gets bogged down in personal biases and the story goes off track. Perhaps, this is why his historical novels are true epics and the contemporary pieces seem to wander off point.

I may well have rated it higher if I had read it first before The Physician, Shaman, and The Last Jew. Its stronger than Death Committee and Matters of the Heart. and a nice precedent to Jerusalen Diamond. The body of work as a whole is outstanding with great books and strong stories. I recommend Gordon to all who love a good story teller