Dei'ah veDibur - Information & Insight

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6 Nisan 5759 - March 24, 1999 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Home and Family
Book Review:
"Harry's Choice"

by Moshe Hoffman, Published by Feldheim
Reviewed by Judith Weil

When you're ready to sit back and relax on Pesach, this can be the entire family's light reading choice...

"Harry's Choice" is a story that will be particularly appreciated by our sons. It contains the things that the males of our species enjoy: adventure, intrigue, danger, but - of course - a happy outcome.

The setting is originally historical, but although the earlier part of the book is set during the time of the Spanish Inquisition, it soon jumps to the present day.

We meet an American streetwise kid from the slums who wants to be a magician. But his guardian angel has other ideas for him, and helps him go to yeshiva in Israel. There his conjuring tricks eventually pale against the magic of Torah and Jerusalem. We also come across a private eye who was formerly a Chicago cop - as I indicated before, it's a book for boys, or for the vicarious experience of anyone who loves reading. The cast of charaters includes an ex-Nazi hypnotist, and also features a Father Bellini, who runs "Holy Land Health Foods" and is trying to manufacture a Christian claim to our Holy City.

The boys' side of the story includes a search for a 500-year- old menora. Its more universal aspect, however, contains something more - and in the end, this is rated far higher - a search for the truth and for self.

And when one is as sincere as the hero of the book, these cannot but be synonymous.

 

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