From Publishers Weekly
In Ragen's latest look at the women of Israel's Orthodox communities (after
Jephte's Daughter), a rabbi's daughters deal with love and the fallout of adultery. The story begins as three sisters reach marrying age with limited options due to family finances and the inherited disgrace of an adulterous ancestor. The eldest at 20, Dvorah dutifully accepts the hand of a man who is short and overweight and slurps his soup. Meanwhile, independent-minded youngest sister Chaya Leah meets secretly with a Hasid (improper marriage material) about to enter the Israeli army. The saddest of the three, middle child Dina, must give up her first love and marry instead a laconic woodcarver. Eventually, unfulfilled emotional needs and a lecherous neighbor drive her to sin; after the Morals Patrol catches up with her, she's exiled to New York. Detailed descriptions of weddings and sexual politics offer much insight, showing both the strength and limits of the Orthodox code of conduct. The pleasures of Ragen's book arise not so much from her characters or plot but from thought-provoking comparisons of Israeli Orthodox and American Jewish life.
(Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Kirkus Reviews
Love-conquers-all genre takes on deep philosophical questions as Ragen (Jephte's Daughter, 1989) continues her exploration of orthodox Jewish life in this story of a woman accused of adultery- -the sotah. The setting is the ultraorthodox milieu of Jerusalem, where the men study the Torah in yeshivas while their wives bear numerous children, clean and cook, and find outside work to supplement their meager incomes. Here, heroine Dina's struggle to be independent and still religiously observant provides the more profound concerns of a story that, despite its religious background, is basically your typically rosy fade-out into a technicolor sunset, with all problems--and they are not insubstantial--wrapped up in the last chapter. Dina Reich, the beautiful and dutiful daughter of Rabbi Reich and his remarkably energetic and saintly wife, yearns for love, for knowledge of a wider world than the narrow one she is confined to. A brief romance, ended because her family could not pay the requisite dowry, means that Dina must accept a husband chosen by the sect's matchmaker and approved by her parents. She marries good but painfully inarticulate Judah, a carpenter; bears a child; then, bored and lonely, begins a relationship with a more worldly neighbor. Though it's not consummated, religious vigilantes threaten her, and at their behest she flees to New York, where she works as a maid for a wonderful family, who, when she breaks down, do all they can to bring about the inevitable happy ending. Not only is Dina reunited with Judah, whose virtues she now appreciates, but she also finds a satisfactory compromise between the comforting security of religion and tradition and the more fulfilling aspects of sectarian life. Richness of faith and family lovingly evoked, with the other side--religious and cultural intolerance--equally given its due, but it all seems too easy. Philosophy lite. --
Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
