On the evening of November 1, 1994, Rabbi Fred Neulander returned home to find his wife, Carol, facedown on the living room floor, blood everywhere. He called for help, but it was too late. Two trials and eight years later, the founder of what had become the largest reform synagogue in southern New Jersey was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
The Rabbi and the Hit Man is a fascinating true-crime narrative about the first rabbi ever convicted of murder. In a gripping examination of the misuses of the pulpit and the self-delusions of power, Arthur J. Magida paints a devastating portrait of a manipulative man who used his temple as a place to acquire several mistresses -- and to befriend a lonely recovering alcoholic, whom he convinced to kill his wife "for the good of Israel."
The Rabbi and the Hit Manstraddles the juncture between faith and trust, and confronts issues of sex, narcissism, arrogance, and adultery. At its core are such troubling questions as: Why do we often deify clergy, and what are the consequences when they betray us? What happens when religious leaders who set the standards of ethical behavior fail to abide by them in their personal lives -- and instead contribute to the decline of morality in modern America?
This is the definitive account of a charismatic clergyman who paid the ultimate price for ignoring his own words of wisdom: "We live at any moment with our total past; . . . What we do will stay with us forever."
A charismatic but twisted rabbi hires a poor nebbish to kill his wife so he can live happily with his favorite mistress (of four): it sounds like bad crime fiction, but it's the true tale of Rabbi Fred Neulander, which grabbed headlines from New York City to Philadelphia until the rabbi's conviction (after a mistrial) last year. Magida tries not too convincingly to give this luridly fascinating story a larger significance by examining the loneliness that afflicts longtime rabbis and citing a study of clergymen who engage in affairs with congregants (Neulander is a "Dark King," who "uses his charm and charisma to convince congregants that he has `special abilities' "); the author is more successful in considering the painful and divisive impact of Neulander's crime on the South Jersey congregants who had adored their brilliant, ebullient rabbi. But journalist Magida (Prophet of Rage: A Life of Louis Farrakhan) is neither a penetrating portraitist nor a prose stylist. Neulander's outsize personality, rooted in ambition and ego, does come through. But Magida doesn't seem to have had access to the rabbi (and the lack of source notes leaves it unclear); sometimes he tells readers what Neulander thought or felt; other times, he relies on "maybe" and "apparently." Carol, Neulander's wife, remains a cipher, and there are frustrating gaps-two of Neulander's mistresses are virtually absent here, as are two of his three grown children, whose anguish one can only imagine. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
About the Author
Arthur J. Magida is the author of Prophet of Rage: A Life of Louis Farrakhan and His Nation. A former contributing correspondent to PBS's Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, he has also been senior editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times. He is currently writer-in-residence at the University of Baltimore.
Arthur J. Magida's new book, The Nazi Séance - a biography of Erik Jan Hanussen, "Hitler's Jewish clairvoyant" - will be published by Macmillan in November. "An astonishing story, brilliantly told," says Roger Moorhouse, author of Killing Hitler. Ron Rosenbaum, author of Explaining Hitler, agrees: "Hanussen (and his relation to Hitler)is one of the strangest enigmas of the pre-war era. Arthur Magida has done a great service in illuminating this figure of mystery--and the light his story reflects on the growing darkness surrounding him." "Well-written... Since there have been exaggerated accounts of Nazi interest in... the occult, it is refreshing to have this subject engaged in a thoughtful way... Readers will obtain a real sense of how many in the upheavals of post-World War 1 Germany flocked to the most unlikely sources of information and comfort" -- Gerhard Weinberg, eminent history of the Nazi era Mitch Horowitz, author of Occult America, says, "Arthur Magida's haunting and vivid historical portrait illustrates how opportunism and spiritual fashion flourished on the margins of the Third Reich. It is a chilling parable about the ultimate price paid by those who blindly allied themselves with brute power." Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, scholar-in-residence, Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco, and author of Kabbalah: A Love Story, observes, "In a history that reads like a novel, Arthur Magida, gives us much more than a finely written and well-researched examination of the "Nazi" Jewish psychic. The Nazi Seance may also be a disturbingly fit metaphor for Jewish existence among the nations." Narrative possesses the "palpable dread of a thriller" -- The Urbanite
Magida's previous book, Opening the Doors of Wonder, explains rites of passage in a variety of religions - bar/bat mitzvahs, confirmations, baptisms, Hindus' sacred thread ceremonies, Muslims' shahada, Buddhists' jukai. Interviews include Deepak Chopra, Elie Wiesel, Ram Dass, Roz Chast, Chinua Achebe, Robert Thurman and Yusuf Islam (the former Cat Stevens). Comments about Opening the Doors of Wonder include "Goes far toward helping us understand one another - a much-needed venture in our 9/11 age." -- Henry Louis Gates Jr Magida's The Rabbi and The Hit Man, the true story of a New Jersey rabbi given life imprisonment for hiring a hit man to kill his wife, was praised for "compelling, "measured," "stately" tone and its "dense, yet tight pacing... that reads like a top-notch crime novel." One critic deemed the book "required reading in all seminaries." Prophet of Rage: A Life of Louis Farrakhan and His Nation also received critical acclaim: "A key biography of perhaps the most flamboyant African American leader of our time."(The San Francisco Chronicle); "Perceptive, balanced, and vividly evocative..." (The Washington Post.) Magida also wrote How To Be a Perfect Stranger and The Environment Committees, a study of environmental politics commissioned by Ralph Nader. A professor at Georgetown University, writer-in-residence at the University of Baltimore and consultant to a recent two-hour PBS film on "forgiveness," Magida has been a columnist for the on-line religion magazine, Beliefnet.com; a contributing correspondent to PBS's "Religion & Ethics Newsweekly;" a consultant to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; editorial director of Jewish Lights Publishing, which specializes in books on religion/spirituality; senior editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times; environmental reporter for National Journal; writer/editor for Ralph Nader; director of publications for an energy conservation project; and a reporter for two Pennsylvania newspapers. His op-eds have appeared in major newspapers around the country and he has free-lanced such publications as Conde Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure, Tikkun, and Geo, Islands and Historic Preservation magazines. His work appears in several anthologies. Magida is listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in Religion, Who's Who in the East and International Authors and Writers Who's Who. He has appeared on Dateline, the CBS Early Show, Court TV's "Catherine Crier Live," "The MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour," ABC's "World News Tonight," C-Span's "Booknotes," NPR's "Morning Edition" and an A&E documentary. He has received 16 Simon Rockower Awards from the American Jewish Press Association; five A.D. Emmart Awards for writing on the humanities; two Smolar Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism; two National Mass Media Certificates of Recognition from the National Conference of Christians and Jews. The Fund for Investigative Journalism and The Dick Goldensohn Fund have supported his work. He has spoken at colleges and civic and religious groups around the country.
This review is from: The Rabbi and the Hit Man: A True Tale of Murder, Passion, and the Shattered Faith of a Congregation (Hardcover)
This book should come with a disclaimer: Read only on a weekend when you don't have early morning plans. Magida effectively portrays Fred Neulander as the rabbi from hell: a sociopath who breaks every possible commandment while abusing the trust of his congregation and community, not to mention his profession. That Neulander meets up with Janoff, the hitman, is tragic karma for Janoff, the classic loser, who is easily manipulated by this evil man. Had the two not met, Neulander would have found some other mechanism through which to kill Carol. This book demonstrates Magida's journalistic skill. He does not moralize but rather salts his narrative with quotes from Jewish sources that leading the reader to conclude that Neulander's lifelong behavior and choices represent an inversion of normative Jewish values and ethics. I hope that Magida sells the film rights to this book to a foreign director. I don't know if an American could capture the sense of "film noir" that the story demands.
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5.0 out of 5 starsCouldn't put it down!, May 26, 2003
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This review is from: The Rabbi and the Hit Man: A True Tale of Murder, Passion, and the Shattered Faith of a Congregation (Hardcover)
This one of those books that keeps you up all night and forces you to read it from cover to cover. As the layers of truth are peeled off, one by one, the story gets more and more fascinating and gruesome. The author has done a magnificent job of not only objectively describing the events, but, even more, of capturing the shock of an entire community and family as they begin to recognize the kind of monster they had been living with and deifying.
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This review is from: The Rabbi and the Hit Man: A True Tale of Murder, Passion, and the Shattered Faith of a Congregation (Hardcover)
I lived in the Philadelphia area when this story broke back in '94. The Rabbi always looked guilty--but I moved away before the story really got good. This book filled me in on what I missed and what a story it is. A fascinating story, filled with absorbing and tragic characters. I thought the book, while well researched, was not well written. The structure is a bit sloppy and some the stories that appear as interludes are only tangentially related (like someone who knew someone who vaguely remembered Neulander in the '60s). I might have chosen a more straight forward narrative, but oh well...the story carries the day. And finally, justice.
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First Sentence:
The sixteen-mile drive from M'kor Shalom to Crescent Burial Park normally took twenty minutes, but so many people joined the funeral procession for Carol Neulander that nearly an hour was required. Read the first pageKey Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
rabbi and the hit man, one congregant, bathroom man, senior rabbi, assistant rabbi, former rabbi, yetzer hara
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
M'kor Shalom, Cherry Hill, Fred Neulander, New Jersey, Carol Neulander, South Jersey, Gary Mazo, Elaine Soncini, Leonard Jenoff, Marty Devlin, Camden County, Rabbi Neulander, Atlantic City, Len Jenoff, Paul Michael Daniels, Lee Solomon, Matthew Neulander, New York, Peppy Levin, Highgate Lane, Mount Holyoke, Philadelphia Inquirer, Rosh Hashanah, United States, Yom Kippur
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