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A review by ncrabb
Tuesday the Rabbi Saw Red by Harry Kemelman
4.0
Ah, back in the fascinating world or Rabbi David Small. What a treat this was, as they always are. I fear this is the last of them I’ve not read, so this may well be a long and heart-felt farewell to the only rabbi I’ve ever known. But I’ll keep that long stuff only in my head and keep the review short for your sake. I regret that, because I can’t find spellings of character names, I won’t refer to them in this review. That’s the major glaring downside of an audiobook.
Rabbi Small takes the call in early September. Windemere Christian College needs a rabbi who can teach a class on Jewish philosophy and thought. The previous guy didn’t want to do it, and since the dean of the college grew up in the same town where Rabbi Small has his congregation, she felt he would do an excellent job. He accepted.
The quiet rabbi shares an office with an irascible English department head who proudly displays a heavy bust of Homer on a high shelf above his desk. Small’s officemate has little good to say about Jews, but his nastiness is all-inclusive, since he lashes out at blacks, the Irish, and any other minority. But the quiet rabbi doesn’t use the office much, so he doesn’t interact with the guy enough to dislike him.
Classes aren’t easy at first. The students with their lack of respect anger Small. This is a little liberal arts college in the years after Kent State but before the end of the Vietnam War, so tensions run high. Students are unhappy that a somewhat radical Jewish professor won’t get a contract renewal, and they have a dialogue-filled sit-in at the dean’s office. They get nasty and profane with her, and she walks out of the office and doesn’t return. Minutes later, someone explodes a bomb near Rabbi Small’s office, and the heavy bust of Homer leaves the shelf and takes up a new resting place on the head of Small’s curmudgeonly officemate. The explosion didn’t kill him; but that bust of Homer did. The question is, did the bust fall because of the explosion? Or did some other sinister force come into play?
Like the other books in the series, this one teaches much about Judaism as it existed in the early and mid-1970s. I love the philosophical stuff here. You learn so much about Judaism, and the good rabbi relies heavily on his knowledge of the Talmud to help crack the case.
Rabbi Small takes the call in early September. Windemere Christian College needs a rabbi who can teach a class on Jewish philosophy and thought. The previous guy didn’t want to do it, and since the dean of the college grew up in the same town where Rabbi Small has his congregation, she felt he would do an excellent job. He accepted.
The quiet rabbi shares an office with an irascible English department head who proudly displays a heavy bust of Homer on a high shelf above his desk. Small’s officemate has little good to say about Jews, but his nastiness is all-inclusive, since he lashes out at blacks, the Irish, and any other minority. But the quiet rabbi doesn’t use the office much, so he doesn’t interact with the guy enough to dislike him.
Classes aren’t easy at first. The students with their lack of respect anger Small. This is a little liberal arts college in the years after Kent State but before the end of the Vietnam War, so tensions run high. Students are unhappy that a somewhat radical Jewish professor won’t get a contract renewal, and they have a dialogue-filled sit-in at the dean’s office. They get nasty and profane with her, and she walks out of the office and doesn’t return. Minutes later, someone explodes a bomb near Rabbi Small’s office, and the heavy bust of Homer leaves the shelf and takes up a new resting place on the head of Small’s curmudgeonly officemate. The explosion didn’t kill him; but that bust of Homer did. The question is, did the bust fall because of the explosion? Or did some other sinister force come into play?
Like the other books in the series, this one teaches much about Judaism as it existed in the early and mid-1970s. I love the philosophical stuff here. You learn so much about Judaism, and the good rabbi relies heavily on his knowledge of the Talmud to help crack the case.