I think I read the first set of these when they came out but haven't seen them around for a long time. There is a temptation to read these as a short course on Conservative Judaism but the mysteries are very good. This one involves the complex interactions among several families and members of those families. I can understand the hurt feelings when a son decides to become an observant Jew and therefore doesn't want to eat at home where his mother doesn't keep kosher and I understand the difficulties between an old fashioned, rather stiff, father and the son who finds him almost impossible to tolerate. The idea of a pharmacist making an error, let alone two, in dispensing prescriptions left me shaking my head. As we move through the machinations of the synagogue board we discover the position of the rabbi within the structure and indeed it is totally different from any christian officiant. I think that Rabbi Small takes it a bit far in saying that he wants to be free of restraints and able to create his own job. He is paid a salary by the congregation and that involves him in a bit more than David likes, but he who pays the piper calls the tune so unless he's going to be a complete scholar, writing, teaching and speaking in public, then he just has to deal with the nasty part of congregational life, meaning the infighting, lobbying, and general resentments that boil up periodically. This book was written in 1976 so I don't know how much change there has been, if any, but I have always thought it strange the way women seem separate from the worship in the synagogue. The board is all male (not unusual then in any organization), it's men that are expected to say the morning and evening prayers, either at home or as part of the minimum of ten men for the minyan, it's men's attendance at sabbath service that is important and of course rabbi, cantor and sexton are all male. The women get their information as to what is going on from gossip at the supermarket or over tea and it just seems as if there are two totally separate communities that come together for meals. I might not have really paid attention to this part if it weren't the 50th anniversary of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. I enjoyed this book, though, especially following the logic as Kememlman lays it out, in spite of the several fortuitous incidents that helped the solution along.
Another nice Rabbi Small mystery - I've read from Friday to Wednesday now. These are quiet little murder mysteries, set in a small town in Massachusetts in the 1960's and 70's. They're quick reads, simply written, and the stories are used as a framework for giving the reader gentle lessons in Judaism. The rabbi solves the mysteries using "Talmudic reasoning and insight".In this book, the rabbi is proving obstinate again. The temple board of directors wants to buy some property in New Hampshire to establish a retreat, and Rabbi Small objects, partially on the grounds that such a thing "smacks of Christianity rather than Judaism.... It suggests convents and monasteries, an ivory-tower attitude. Retreat - the word itself suggests retiring from life and the world. That's not Judaic. We participate." To finance the purchase the board intends to sell some property that was bequeathed to the temple, and the rabbi explains how this would conflict with the man's dying wish, and thus break Jewish law, if not the law of the land.And oh, yeah, there's a murder to be solved, too.
Do You like book Wednesday The Rabbi Got Wet (1976)?
I really do like the rabbi in this series. And I particularly like that the people in his congregation and the other people that are interacted with are well-rounded characters. I like Lanigan and the relationship they have. I do not like that the rabbi has a daughter named Hepsibah (really? Hepsibah?), but presumably that's a cultural thing. I enjoyed the mystery here, especially since I didn't see the resolution coming - I will say that the 18 bothered me throughout and I was a bit annoyed when it seemed like it wouldn't be resolved, but I felt the same way about the way the temple board behaved and that didn't get resolved. I do hope that Kaplan felt appropriately chastened for his behaviour.
—Andrea Hickman Walker
Back in the mists of time (when I was in high school), I gave Harry Kemelman's Rabbi David Small series a whirl. I don't have reviews from that era of reading and I apparently didn't even think enough of (or read enough of) my sampling to think it merited an entry with a star rating in my reading log. But it seems to me that Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet (1976) is the very book I tried and didn't connect with. So, when it came up as I did a search for a suitable "Silver" book that I would have to borrow to read for the Vintage Mystery Bingo Challenge, I decided to give Rabbi Small another try. Unfortunately, I have to report that he still doesn't do a whole lot for me. Oh, the plot is serviceable enough, but the characters just don't engage me. According to the book flap on my library's edition, Rabbi Small is supposed to be one of the "most endearing sleuths in modern fiction." I'm afraid that I just don't see it; he comes across as rather bland to me. But...let's talk about the plot for a moment.This sixth outing for Rabbi Small involves the mysterious death of an elderly man with his fair share of enemies. Old man Kestler dies from an apparent mix-up in medication. Was it an accident on the part of the dispensing pharmacist? Did a family member give him too much--thinking if one is good then two is better? Or was there some malice aforethought? When Kestler's son starts stirring up trouble with threats of a malpractice suit against the doctor involved, Police Chief Hugh Lanigan begins to quietly investigate...taking Rabbi Small into his confidence along the way. But when Lanigan arrests a troubled young man who has come home to his father's pharmacy and who had a past history of difficulty with Kestler, the good rabbi begins to investigate in earnest and finds ties to his own congregation and a planned real estate deal.As mentioned above, the plot is serviceable. But it is also uninspired and not quite what I expect of a murder mystery. (view spoiler)[I expect an apparent murder to actually be murder. Not death because of unforeseen circumstances. Mischief was planned...but not death.So I cry "Foul!" (hide spoiler)]
—Bev
