Kabbalah of Stone: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)Irene Reti's novel, Kabbalah of Stone, made fifteenth century Spain real for me. This well-researched Jewish historical novel gave me a genuine sense of time and place, along with characters that engaged me. Reti is also a poet and a memoirist and her prose reflects this. The book is filled with wonderful, almost lyrical, detail about medieval culture and I felt as if I were in Gerona, Spain in 1492. I was transported back to the Spanish Inquisition, was immersed in its horrors and, as I read, I developed a very real affection for the main characters - a rabbi, his daughter and a young Christian scribe who discovers that he is really Jewish, a converso. But Reti's novel is more than a historical novel about ordinary people caught up in the terror of the Inquisition, it also incorporates the extraordinary in the form of the biblical prophet, Huldah, who first appears to the rabbi when he is in a trance. In the Kabbalistic tradition, Huldah is an Ibbur, a righteous soul with a message, a prophecy for the Rabbi about gender, sexuality and the oneness of creation, a message that I found very relevant to today's world. In this novel Reti raises many issues - about gender (the two male characters are sexually attracted to one another, but during medieval times love between men is condemned), the role of women in medieval Jewish tradition (Miriam, the Rabbi's daughter, is a healer, but is refused access to books by Jewish mystics), about assimilation (the forced conversion of Jews to Catholicism) and about the enduring importance of language to convey belief. Huldah's prophecy is transcribed onto a scroll that eventually finds its way to modern day. I eagerly read this novel because I wanted to know what would happen to these characters and was left with the feeling that human nature has not changed very much and that we could all benefit from Huldah's message.


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Girona, Spain, 1492-Rabbi Raphael Halevi seeks to save his community from the Inquisition. Help comes in the unexpected form of the spirit of the biblical prophet, Huldah, and a Christian scribe who has discovered his hidden Jewish identity. This lyrical and suspenseful novel of Jewish history, magic, and Kabbalah offers a feminist reinterpretation of an intriguing Hebrew prophet.

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