Fantasy

A lively, inventive tale of Isaac that follows him beyond Genesis into the 21st century.

After being spared from Abraham's blade, he's been granted eternal youth and wanders the earth as a soldier of fortune. Turning up at a coffee shop in Los Angeles, he falls in love with Ruth Canby, a brilliant, breezy academic with a troubled past.

Isaac suspects he was forgotten, "a crumb dropped unnoticed in a kitchen crevice." Perhaps whatever saved him is long gone, leaving him "a puppet without a puppet master, like one of those Japanese soldiers stranded on an island after World War II."

Isaac and Ruth must ultimately confront a sinister, enigmatic phantom that's stalked him for forty centuries. The story makes stops that include the Spanish Inquisition, a luxury box at the Super Bowl, and the infamous cells of the Tombs of New York City. Along the way it takes stock of time and chance, good and evil, faith, forgiveness, God, Satan, and the power of everlasting love.

This collection of books featuring Jewish main characters is decidedly non-comprehensive. As we come across books that are described as having Jewish main characters, we add them to this database. The creators of the Jewish Genre Reading Challenge have not read all (or even most) of the books in this database. We have gathered information from many sources and not all may be accurate. Inclusion of a book in our database does not imply endorsement or approval. There is always the possibility that antisemitism may be present in a book, either written into a character's experience or through malicious or ignorant caricature or stereotypical portrayal of Jewish characters and culture. Please take care of yourselves as you read.

PLEASE let us know if you encounter a book in this database that does not have a Jewish main character, if you have corrections or additions for a book's genre categories, or if you have any other concerns about the inclusion of a particular book in this database.