ESSENTIAL JUDAISM

Frustrated by his inability to find a one-volume reference giving reliable information on Jewish laws, prayers, holidays,

rituals, life-cycle events, scripture, rabbinic commentary, mysticism, philosophy (buoyantly introduced here with the heading "Rabbis Versus Philosophers"), and recent history, veteran Kirkus reviewer Robinson has produced his own omnium-gatherum (or whatever the equivalent Hebrew term is) of all things Jewish. The tone throughout is forthright, with just enough humor to keep you browsing after you’ve found the answer you were looking for. It’s in the nature of the enterprise that a great deal of the material in this formidably comprehensive work is available elsewhere, but even readers who think their library of Judaica is complete may be surprised and enlightened by the sidebars on gay and lesbian synagogues, the question of proselytizing, and opponents of the religious laws of halakhah, from the Sadducees to the contemporary Reconstructionist movement—not to mention the appendix (one of five) on kashruth, which ends by reminding travelers who plan to reheat kosher TV dinners in nonkosher ovens to cover them completely first with two layers of aluminum foil.

An authorial feat that’s a reader’s feast.