Purchase the book here

 

Did Chaim Lerner, acclaimed Israeli author and Holocaust survivor, kill himself in 1983, thirty-eight years after surviving Auschwitz? If so, was it traumatic memories finally catching up to him? Or despair over Holocaust denialism? Or ordinary, difficult health issues-an aching hip, a damaged knee? Or simply a deadly episode of depression?

 

Or was it murder?

 

In 2005, Judah Loeb, Lerner's former student and now a struggling American journalist and single father, travels to Jerusalem to investigate Lerner's death. He drags along his fifteen-year-old daughter, Hannah, and they team up with Charlie, Judah's former Hebrew University roommate, now a Jerusalem homicide detective. Their investigation takes them through the darker corners of the Israeli psyche, where they uncover secrets that threaten to destroy Lerner's reputation and alter Jewish history. While probing the mysteries of Israel's past, they encounter personal betrayal, heartbreak, and the fragile possibilities of forgiveness and redemption.

 

Rabbi Philip Graubart was Senior Rabbi at CBE from 2001 to 2016. He is the author of several books, including "Planet of the Jews," "Rabbis and Gangsters," "Silwan," "Women and God," "Notes from the Narrow Place," and his latest mystery "Here There Is No Why."

 

Mazal Tov to Rabbi Phil Graubart on the publication of his new book.

 

Please register for the luncheon below.  

 

Contact dvinick@cbe.org for more information.