One in a Thousand
The lives of Bruryah Ahroni and Rachel Dotan, two young Orthodox women, come together to create a delicate fusion of fears, worries, jealousies, concerns and love.
Bruryah`s father, a renowned Jerusalem rabbi, broke with custom when he raised his daughter to study Talmud. Now an individualist as well as a scholar, Bruryah opens a unique religious studies seminary for girls, and has to cope with the antagonism it arouses within the community. She also suffers disappointment in love with the young men her father introduces her to, and is secretly in love with Rachel`s husband. Rachel, who married young and teaches in Bruryah`s seminary, also struggles to keep her inner world intact: though bright and brimming with love, it is not devoid of anxieties.
Novels by Orthodox women about their community are still relatively rare in Israel. One in a Thousand offers fascinating insight into the sometimes unsteady and fractured balance within it.
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“ A profound and penetrating story about Judaism and desire.”
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“ Mira Kedar has created a voice all her own and a unique, daring style, which reinvents itself as she writes... One just flows with the wealth and diversity of her language, reaching a rare kind of enjoyment that only one in a thousand books can create.”
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“ One in a Thousand is the kind of book that makes you want to meet the author, hug her and ask her to sit down at her desk and start writing her next book right now.”