<p>In 1998, the old Soviet Union is dead, the new Russia is awash in corruption and despair. Manya and Yuri Zalinikov, secular Jews -- he, a gifted mathematician recently dismissed from the Academy; she, a concert pianist -- sell black market electronics in a market stall, until threatened with a gun by a mafioso in search of protection money. Yuri sinks into a Chekhovian melancholy, emerging to announce that he wants to "live as a Jew" in Israel. Manya and their daughter, Galina, are desolate, asking "how does one do that," and why?And thus begins their odyssey -- part tragedy, part comedy, always surprising. Struggling against loneliness, language, and danger, in a place Manya calls "more cousin's club than country," Yuri finds a Talmudic teacher equally addicted to religion and luxury; Manya finds a job playing the piano at The White Nights supper club, owned by a wealthy, flamboyant Russian with a murky history, who offers lust disguised as love. Galina, enrolled at Hebrew University, finds dance clubs and pizza emporiums and a string of young men, one of whom Manya hopes will save her from the Israeli army by marrying her. Against a potpourri of marriage wigs, matchmaking television shows, disastrous investment schemes, and a suicide bombing, the Zalinikovs confront the thin line between religious faith and skepticism, as they try to answer: what does it mean to be fully human, what does it mean to be Jewish? And what role in all of this does the "mazel" gene play?</p>

Jerusalem as a Second Language

Literature & Fiction

Distelheim, Rochelle

United States

Aubade Publishing

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Books by Distelheim, Rochelle

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Distelheim, Rochelle. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Jerusalem as a Second Language