The Rabbi

Attractive vintage copy McGraw-Hill-English language- 1965 New York fifth printing Library of Congress catalog card number 652-1583 -pre ISBN out of print copyright by author blue denim-looking boards gold titling on spine Goldenrod tan-ish end papers deckle edges- 389 pgs-Wonder what true love is, this novel has some satisfying answers. It traces into middle age the career of a rabbi who marries a shickseh (converted from Christianity), an act which his congregations view with grave distaste. Surely a dedicated rabbi, who is almost a Talmudic scholar, can find a good Jewish girl the rabbi has very original ideas. He feels to marry, not merely a convert.Anguish is that they aren't worthy of him-not if he is to sign a lifetime contract with them. -Rabbi has a string of failures around the country, congregations which slip through his fingers or which he abandons because they are at fault.San Francisco congregation- wants a spiritual factotum, a rabbi- the high holy days no bother them on lesser occasions.Georgia congregation wants a rabbi who will turn his head away from the color problem.Pennsylvania congregation builds him a half-million dollar temple with famous art-- then they avoid him like a tax-collector, which-in effect, he is .After twenty happy years of marriage rabbi's wife falls into involutional melancholia and undergoes shock treatment. Her successful recovery& return home provide a deeply moving climax to a generally illuminating novel. -The Rabbi- Author Noah Gordon- Edition-fifth printing- McGraw-Hill New York , 1965-deckle edge pages blue cloth covers-dust jacket-poor- lcn 652-1583 -- 389 pages-