LOST AND FOUND

Mendel Traig, Treblinka survivor and relocated in 1947 to the small town of BoRon, Pennsylvania, has in the succeeding years made a modest, ancillary life for himself--as the administrator, cemetery-caretaker, and general jack-of-all-trades for Bolton's one synagogue and small Jewish community. But a refugee home, as the uprooted Mendel is all too aware, is never a real home--and when an Israeli cousin writes to tell of German reparation payments amounting to $75,000 (which Mendel will have to resettle in Israel to get), Mendel has a dilemma. Interspersed with the dilemma: vignettes, sometimes rather charming, usually treacly, concerning the BoRon Jews--the fundraising chairman who is personally tapped-out but is saved by a mysterious stranger; assembling a Sisterhood cookbook; the deracinated Whites (nÉ Weisblatts) who, going through Dachau on European holiday, uneasily choose not to stop to see the memorial; the community's taking-in a family of Vietnam refugees who say they're Jews . . . but turn out to be Pentecostals. Green runs a little too much to problem-solving-by-angels and inspirational episodes, but as a character Mendel acquits himself nicely, a round-bottomed soul, gentle and amused. Look not for anything but simple sentiment here, then, and you'll probably roll along easily enough with the assorted Jewish-American/refugee heartwarmings.