Harvey Tattelbaum was a village rabbi. But what a village! And what a rabbi! He’s written a delightful book that makes a perfect Chanukah gift. It’s avaiable either in paperback or e-book format.

In the late fifties and sixties, Greenwich Village was the quirkiest, most charming, jazzy, eccentric and urban of environments, the center of all that was both quaint and “cool”: brownstones and beatniks, coffeehouses and college students, folksingers and freethinkers, poets and “prophets.” Into this fascinating mix of cultural archetypes came a young rabbi, Harvey M. Tattelbaum, who became known as the Village Rabbi of the Village Temple.

The spirit of Sholom Aleichem infuses his Tales of the Village Rabbi, a touching and laugh-out-loud funny memoir of his tenure at a small synagogue in the heart of Greenwich Village. Though his years in this magical place were productive and soul-filling, rabbinical training hadn’t exactly prepared him for the bikers, thieves, ex-cons, eccentric old ladies, drug-users, cleavage-baring brides and other Village denizens he encountered while serving the congregants of his spirited little temple.

Rabbi Tattelbaum shares his insider’s tales-both downtown and uptown-of wayward weddings (and funerals), contentious temple boards, irreverent interfaith shenanigans, heartaches and triumphs. But the Tales also reveal a deep personal struggle with some of the most profound philosophical problems of ancient and modern religion and are filled with a warm, humane and rational approach to spirituality and religious meaning.

RC

During the reign of the Emperor Vespasian and shortly after Roman armies have crushed the Jewish revolt in Judea and destroyed the Temple, a young Roman Questor and investigating magistrate, Julius Varro, is commissioned to investigate the story that a Jew rose from the dead after being crucified in Jerusalem some forty years before. Implicit in his commission is the mandate that he must return with proof that such an event could not have happened.

The fast-growing cult of the Nazarene is becoming a threat to the political stability in the region—and to the power of Rome as well. Many of the witnesses to the tale are long dead, the trail of evidence is chancy at best. Surviving witnesses lie to protect their own lives. Questor Varro pursues his mission with zeal and conviction, determined to produce a report that will demolish the claims of those he regards as religious fanatics and crackpots. Along the way, his investigation stirs religious passions, immerses him in unexpected intrigue and foments violence. He also finds himself attracted to a beautiful Jewish slave girl.

Varro completes his devastating report. It demolishes the myth fueling the new Christian movement. He is set to return to Rome when an extraordinary -  in fact miraculous – event changes everything…including Varro’s own deepest convictions.

In Inquest, a magnificently conceived and executed historical novel, Roman historian Stephen Dando-Collins creates a historical conceit worthy of the work worthy of comparison with The Da Vinci Code.

RC