In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist
By Ruchama King Feuerman
NYRB Classics, £9.99
Diary of a Jewish Muslim
By Kamal Ruhayyim
AUC Press/I B Tauris, £12.99
When he turns 40, Isaac Markowitz, "plagued with eczema and living on the Lower East Side," sells his haberdashery business and moves to Jerusalem.
He is lonely, unmarried, childless and desperately unfulfilled. When he arrives in Jerusalem, he seeks out a kabbalist, Rebbe Yehoshua, who is said to be good at helping those with "difficulties of the soul". The rebbe suggests Isaac stays awhile and Isaac becomes the kabbalist's assistant.
This is the beginning of Feuerman's acclaimed new novel. The opening is a terrific piece of storytelling and, in no time, you are drawn in to Isaac's story.
The novel moves between the story of Isaac and that of Mustafa, a poor, disabled Palestinian janitor. The two men have much in common. Both are desperately lonely, tormented by their bodies, Isaac by his eczema, Mustafa by his damaged spine.
Both are single, cut off from their families and both have left home - in Mustafa's case, a small Palestinian village. But there is an interesting twist: both are almost saintly - or perhaps holy fools. They meet by accident and the novel is about the story of their relationship.
The narrative also moves between two religious places.
First, the courtyard of the kabbalist, where the wretched and hopeless of Jerusalem come to seek guidance from Rebbe Yehoshua - two obese, quarrelling neighbours; women who cannot find husbands; men who cannot find wives; the ill; the crazy; the wretched.
Then there is the Noble sanctuary, where Mustafa works, a Muslim holy place in Jerusalem. Here, he comes across a piece of ancient pottery, which he takes to the kindly Isaac, and the novel takes off.
The plot is mostly predictable. Chick-lit meets political correctness. But Feuerman brings present-day (and ancient) Jerusalem to life and creates a group of memorable characters: the two men, the kabbalist and his wife, and the beautiful Tamar with whom Isaac falls madly in love.
A novel about lonely people seeking love becomes something much more interesting, a book about people looking for fulfilment, and finding a way of doing something deeply meaningful with their lives. By the end, even the most cynical will need a good stack of tissues.
Egyptian-born Kamal Ruhayyim, has written a book of stories and five previous novels. His latest, Diary of a Jewish Muslim, is a novel set in postwar Egypt, and tells the story of Galal, whose mother is Jewish, but whose father was a Muslim.
It is the tale of a Jewish boy growing up in a Muslim country. Galal is rootless in Cairo, torn between his father's Muslim family and his mother's Jewish family. Like Feuerman's novel, Ruhayyim's describes an innocent world of religious coexistence. Sadly, both seem a long way from today's world of persecution and terror.
