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My Life With the Patriarchs
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Reviews
I was overwhelmed. My Life With the Patriarchs is a wonderful, original, funny, sad, and clever novel. With just one book, Dov Elbaum will do to you what years of bible studies couldn’t do.
Ohad, the narrator, a timid guy, starts a series of conversations with our nation’s forefathers (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for those of you who don’t remember) who award him with their wisdom, argue and fight with him, and expose him to their less famous deeds and characteristics. The Patriarchs stole, lied, and cheat, and still kept direct communication with God.
Elbaum’s Patriarchs are not caged between the sheets of that book you got for your Bar-Mitzvah. Abraham is playing the stock market, Isaac suffers from a childhood trauma and refuses to speak with God, and Jacob is fucking Swedish maidens on the beaches of Sinai and then becomes a reborn Jew. Nevertheless, they remain the archetypical patriarchs.
This one is a mandatory on the alternative-Judaism book shelf, and one that could slap some of the people who insist on explaining God’s intentions.
Manheim, Noa. Tel Aviv. March 2001
The current Israeli bestseller lists are wonderfully eclectic, suggesting a highly inquisitive readership with wide ranging interests. [ . . . ] Jewish history and identity are themes which recur in several of these novels, including Dov Elbaum’s “My Life With the Patriarchs”, a loosely autobiographical fantasy which locates the biblical forefathers in modern Israel.
“What the world is Reading”. The Economist. 24 march 2001.
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