The Sacrifice of Tamar (Readers Guide Editions)

Rating:
Summary: A great book dealing with a very dramatic dilemma...
Review: A young Jewish women, newly married to a Rabbi, is raped by a blaack intruder who broke into her sister's apartment, and the same night not only does she hide the fact fromer her husband, she also has sext with him. When she finds out she's pregnant, but is not sure who's the father... She turns to two of her childhood friends to help her out, and eventually decides to keep the baby and the secret, which is kept until her son's wife suddenly has a black child, and she feels she has to finally take the blame, and find out - too late - she could have unburdened herself earlier with no unwanted results... Unlikely as this story seems to be, I think it shows 2 major aspects of American orthodox jews:

1) Their different lifestyles - of more or less observant Jews, with both their positive and negative sides.

2) More implrtant - women's lack f knowledge with anything to do with the most basic rules of their lives, which could cause so much confusion and misunderstandings...

Rating:
Summary: A desilusioning "Ragen"
Review: I am not a complete fan of Naomi Ragen's style of writing, but from "Sotah" and "The Ghost of Hannah Mendes"I learned about a community foreign to me or a historical period. This book was too predictable, I do not like it when after the first chapter I stop being surprised. I thought the characters to be too limited and charicutaristic, the negative use of the "violent black genetic material" enoying.

Rating:
Summary: The Sacrifice of Tamar
Review: I read "The Sacrifice of Tamar," by author Naomi Ragen, after reading her first and second novels, "Sotah," and "Jephte's Daughter." Ms. Ragen's voice and style show significant growth with each new book. Her characters and their responses to crises are much more complex, and less predictable in each successive novel.

I found "Sacrifice" a compelling story, set as it is against a cultural backdrop rarely accessible to non-Haredi Jews. However, I was very disappointed with one aspect of "Sacrifice." In it Ms. Ragen positions blackness as an inherently flawed, deficient human condition. And she writes as if this were a universally acknowledged fact.

I have no problem with Ms. Ragen using a black rapist as a plot device; it's certainly plausible that a woman attacked by a black rapist could project her hatred onto all black people. Not admirable, but understandable.

But that, as the story line goes, one's blackness should be sufficient grounds on which to be found repulsive, disgraceful, and utterly lacking in human value ... Well, that's another thing. (...)

I'm reluctant to brand Ms. Ragen a racist -- she has proven herself a champion of justice and human dignity in other arenas -- but the premise of this particular novel is pretty nefarious.

(...)

Rating:
Summary: Reading this book was a spiritual experience...
Review: I read alot. I love books. If I own them, I can't part with them. If I borrow them, I want to own them. If I check them out, I hate to return them. This is a book to own, and keep, and reread. It's a book to learn from and ponder. This book is smart, beautiful, sad and perhaps, particularly touched me as a mother. I really thought about the struggles of these characters...I was deeply moved by the richness and detail of them and the lives they lead. And that may be the key...even those of us who consider ourselves religious, or pious, or devout, or spirtual do not really wrestle with things...at least not like Tamar does.

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing, Ragen's best so far!
Review: The "Sacrifice of Tamar, not unlike the author's other two books, "Sotah" and "Jepthie's Daughter" takes place in an insular ultra-othrdox community. "Sacrifice of Tamar" centers mainly in Brooklyn and later moves to Isreal. In the opening chapters Tamar is raped by a blackman and later, the same night, has sex with her own husband. She becomes pregnant and is very concerend that the child may be the rapist's. (She keeps the attack a secret from all but her two closest freinds.) Later she is relieved when the baby born to her, a boy, is white. There's is suffuicient foreshadowing to predict some of what that might occur in years to come when her own son marries and his wife is pregnant with his child. Her characters in this book, Hadassah, Jenny and the Klovitzer Rebbie are believeable and likeable characters. Ragen writes with such authority it's almost as though she has witnessed much of what occurs in her books as good writers write from experience. The books is out of print and her other two novels are difficult to find in my library system owing to their popularity and not ther scarcity. Having read all three in recent weeks I am looking forward to her 4th, due very soon. Another book, "Romance Reader," by Pearl Abraham is also about insular Orthodox communites. Although not very well writen it too is worth searching out in your library.

Rating:
Summary: Too Melodramatic
Review: The "Sacrifice of Tamar, not unlike the author's other two books, "Sotah" and "Jepthie's Daughter" takes place in an insular ultra-othrdox community. "Sacrifice of Tamar" centers mainly in Brooklyn and later moves to Isreal. In the opening chapters Tamar is raped by a blackman and later, the same night, has sex with her own husband. She becomes pregnant and is very concerend that the child may be the rapist's. (She keeps the attack a secret from all but her two closest freinds.) Later she is relieved when the baby born to her, a boy, is white. There's is suffuicient foreshadowing to predict some of what that might occur in years to come when her own son marries and his wife is pregnant with his child. Her characters in this book, Hadassah, Jenny and the Klovitzer Rebbie are believeable and likeable characters. Ragen writes with such authority it's almost as though she has witnessed much of what occurs in her books as good writers write from experience. The books is out of print and her other two novels are difficult to find in my library system owing to their popularity and not ther scarcity. Having read all three in recent weeks I am looking forward to her 4th, due very soon. Another book, "Romance Reader," by Pearl Abraham is also about insular Orthodox communites. Although not very well writen it too is worth searching out in your library.

Rating:
Summary: Nice read, if a bit predictable
Review: This book was loaned to me along with Naomi Ragen's other book, "Sotah." (Which I am currently reading.) The book does give a glimpse into a world seldom ever shared with outsiders, and I found this intriguing. The book certainly "grabs" its readers from the beginning. However, the flashback scenes to the main characters childhoods, even though providing necessary information, was almost a distraction. As well, the flashback takes up a good 1/3 of the book and I felt it might have been better stated at the beginning of the book.

When the book is half finished, it becomes rather predictible. The main character is raped by a black man, has sex with her husband the same night, and give birth to a white child. That would seemingly end the story, yet it continues. This leads the reader to pretty much figure what happens next.

Even with that, I enjoyed the book as a pleasant diversion. (And enough to go ahead and begin "Sotah" as well) 3 stars is lower than I would give this book, but it doesn't quite reach 4 stars, in my opinion. I would truly give it 3 1/2 stars, if that were possible.

I thought the more interesting points in the book were below the surface and how three differing points of view, from three very different women, were demonstrated: from the rebellious Hadassah, to the accepting Tamar, to the reflective Jenny. All three women are strong characters in their own right, and all follow different paths. The relationships between the three and within their own worlds is a fascinating character study.

Rating:
Summary: Read Ragen's other books first
Review: Though I gave the book four stars, it is clearly not the book "Sotah" and "Jephte's Daughter" were. There was too much of getting the message across rather than true story-telling in "Sacrifice," and Ragen is usually a superb story-teller. I neither thought the book was racist nor denegrating of Orthodox Judaism, and I feel the readers who "saw" those elements in the book were projecting them because they were only reading the surface. The emotions and opinions of Tamar and the other characters are valid as far as what is happening in this particular story. Calling the author a racist is confusing her with her characters. I just wish things hadn't tipped so far into melodrama and polemic. I haven't found Ragen's characters to be such stick figures before; they're usually more three-dimensional.