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    A Study Guide for Cynthia Ozick's "Pagan Rabbi"
    A Study Guide for Cynthia Ozick's "Pagan Rabbi"
    A Study Guide for Cynthia Ozick's "Pagan Rabbi"
    Ebook37 pages16 minutes

    A Study Guide for Cynthia Ozick's "Pagan Rabbi"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Cynthia Ozick's "Pagan Rabbi," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJul 6, 2016
    ISBN9781535830539
    A Study Guide for Cynthia Ozick's "Pagan Rabbi"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Cynthia Ozick's "Pagan Rabbi" - Gale

      1

      The Pagan Rabbi

      Cynthia Ozick

      1971

      Introduction

      The Pagan Rabbi was first published in the 1971 collection The Pagan Rabbi and Other Stories, which garnered extensive critical acclaim for Cynthia Ozick. The book won the B’nai B’rith Jewish Heritage Award in 1971, The Jewish Book Council Award, and the Edward Lewis Wallant Memorial Award in 1972, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in 1973. It was also nominated for a National Book Award in 1971.

      The Pagan Rabbi is told from the point of view of an unnamed narrator, who learns that Isaac Kornfeld, a renowned thirty-six-year-old rabbi with whom the narrator was acquainted, has committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree in a park. The narrator, seeking to understand Isaac’s motive, first goes to see the tree from which he hanged himself, and then to see the rabbi’s widow, Sheindal Komfeld. The widow asks him to read the notebook and the letter found in the rabbi’s pockets upon his death. The narrator and the widow discuss the meaning of the extensive musings of the rabbi, which address theological and philosophical questions regarding faith and the soul in relation to Nature. They conclude that the rabbi had secretly become a pagan, seduced by a Creature that seemed to be a goddess of Nature.

      This story addresses themes that appear in much of Ozick’s short fiction, including the place of Judaism in secular America, idolatry, death, the soul, paganism, and crises in faith. It also addresses themes of marriage and family in relation to Jewish identity.

      Author Biography

      Known primarily for her short stories and novellas, Cynthia Ozick is one of the most celebrated Jewish-American writers of the century. She was born in New York, New York, on April 17, 1928. Her mother, born in the town of Hlusk, in the province of Minsk, Belarus, had escaped persecution of Jews there at age nine. Her father was also from Russia. Her parents owned the Park View Pharmacy, where she worked delivering prescriptions. In 1930, the family moved to what was then a rural area in Pelham Bay in the

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