The Frozen Rabbi
(eBook)

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Book Cover Information

Hoopla Extract Information

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    [year] => 2011
    [artist] => Steve Stern
    [fiction] => 1
    [coverImageUrl] => https://cover.hoopladigital.com/hbg_9781616200671_270.jpeg
    [titleId] => 15239173
    [isbn] => 9781616200671
    [abridged] => 
    [language] => ENGLISH
    [profanity] => 
    [title] => The Frozen Rabbi
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    [pages] => 384
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                    [name] => Steve Stern
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            [1] => Historical
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    [price] => 2.99
    [id] => 15239173
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    [synopsis] => Award-winning novelist Steve Stern's exhilarating epic recounts the story of how a nineteenth-century rabbi from a small Polish town ends up in a basement freezer in a suburban Memphis home at the end of the twentieth century. What happens when an impressionable teenage boy inadvertently thaws out the ancient man and brings him back to life is nothing short of miraculous. 

 Steve Stern, winner of the National Jewish Book Award, is the author of several previous novels and novellas. He teaches at Skidmore College in upstate New York.

 A recent article in The Jewish Review of Books (Spring 2010) lamented the paucity of Jewish fantasy books. While there are no lions symbolizing deities, we now have The Frozen Rabbi. Eliezer ben Zephyr, a nineteenth century mystic, was in a meditative trance when bad weather struck, submerging him in a newly formed pond, where he froze. Bernie Karp is a twenty-first century teenager who discovers ben Zephyr in the freezer in his parents' basement. When he questions his parents, he learns that the rabbi has been handed down through the family as a sort of talisman. An equally fierce storm hits Memphis, knocking out power, and when Bernie checks on the rabbi, he has defrosted.  The book starts with Bernie's discovery of the rabbi, and proceeds in alternating chapters, catching the reading up on how the rabbi got to Bernie's basement, then continuing with Bernie's changing life and the Rabbi's endeavors.  Rabbi ben Zephyr acquaints himself with modern society by watching television all day. He then decides that America is lacking spirituality and convinces Bernie's father, an appliance salesman, to finance the rabbi's "House of  Enlightenment," where he will "peddle be-a-ti-tude," and "also sell a few specialty items on the side-books and talismans, red string to ward off the evil eye, everything marked up and elegantly repackaged of course." 

Out of the most bizarre circumstances, things seem reasonable, and part of what makes this book so enjoyable is seeing how Mr. Stern gets his characters from one place to another and how the absurd starts to make sense.  Without giving away too much of this romp through modern Jewish history, the rabbi, suspended in ice is passed down, almost like a mesorah. "Yosl King of Cholera from Boibicz, who married Chava Babtcheh, her that died from giving birth to Salo that they called him Frostbissen, who married the sharp-tongued Basha Puah who begot in Lodz first the twins Yachneh and Yoyneh, who ran away to Palestine, then me, Jocheved, who begot in America with my poor husband Shmerl your father Ruben Karp, who was in the Yichud a holy terror before he got wed to his wife that was shlangbissen, snakebit after already she begot you…" The rabbi's story starts in Eastern Europe, where he is adopted by Salo the iceman. The rabbi then arrives in America, and spends time on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. This part of the book was a little slow, as the scene is set for the next guardian of the rabbi.  Bernie learns more by reading his Grandpa Ruby's diary, which includes a stint in the nascent state of Israel (for Ruby, not the rabbi). Once Ruby returns to Memphis with his orphan son, the past catches up with the present very quickly, with Ruby's son Julius taking over the appliance business, marrying Yetta, and soon after fathering Bernie and his older sister, Madeline. How does the rabbi stay frozen all this time?  That's the part of the plot that includes inventions, train transport, and contraband.   

Most of all, this is a book about transformation and façade.  While the rabbi dresses the part and looks like an ancient grandfather, sex plays a major part in his outlook.  As he professes to bring spirituality to the masses, it is definitely a commercial venture that includes his memoir, The Ice Sage. Like his ancestor before, Jocheved, who transformed her outward appearance so the extent that it affected her inte
    [url] => https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/15239173
    [pa] => 
    [publisher] => Algonquin Books
    [purchaseModel] => INSTANT
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