Friday the Rabbi Slept Late

By Harry Kemelman, Crown Publishing, 1964, 160 pages
Reviewed by Ted Streuli, June 25, 2002

There’s no musty smell or quirky character at the cash register, but the Internet can nonetheless produce an occasional delight from its electronic stacks, some piece of once-popular fiction relegated to the World Wide Bargain Bin that finds its way to the top like an ambitious kernel of popping corn. Such was the case with Friday the Rabbi Slept Late, Harry Kemelman’s 1965 Edgar Award winner for Best First Novel, the first of a 12-book series about the amateur sleuthing adventures of Rabbi David Small.

The rabbi is more Father Brown than Sam Spade; he might even be cast as a more philosophical Jessica Fletcher as his small New England town has a murder rate that would make Hoover’s head spin. But like those literary comfort-food characters, Rabbi Small outwits the friendly local constabulary in such an amiable way that the crime at the heart of the story seems no more extraordinary than a trip to the store for a forgotten carton of eggs.

That’s the charm; Kemelman lets his scholarly rabbi spend more time teaching readers about Judaism than detective work. And with nearly 60 years passed since publication, the new revelation in the old story is about how we used to think. Reading now, Kemelman, who died in 1996, is able to remind us of how late into the 20th Century America’s anti-Semitic leanings, both subtle and forthright, remained prominent while revealing the sensitivity of his community to Gentile perceptions.

Mostly, he illustrates that the rest of us don’t know bupkis about Judaism.

In one passage, describing a housing development in the town, characters show the bigotry of the era:

“Well, if the Jews should move out, then Christians would move in,” said Nute. “That wouldn’t bother me.” “You don’t cotton to Jews, do you, Heber?” asked Macomber. “No, I can’t say that I do.” “How about Catholics and colored people?” “Can’t say as I’m overpartial to them either.”

It’s notable that the Civil Rights Act was being debated while the book was being written; Crown released the book in January 1964; the bill was signed by President Johnson less than six months later. That’s not to suggest the novel influenced the legislation, an unlikely proposition, but it does offer some context to the book’s themes and the political conversation of the day.

Elspeth Bleech, the victim, is found strangled in the temple parking lot, throwing suspicion on the recently hired rabbi. Congregants, debating whether to renew Small’s contract, are less concerned that the rabbi might be guilty of murder than they are about how it will look to the Gentiles of Barnard’s Crossing.

Suppose they vote for keeping the rabbi, and then it turns out he’s guilty. What would their friends say, especially their Gentile friends?

The suspicion that the rabbi could be the culprit sparks a wave of anti-Semitism. Small’s wife makes a point of answering the phone so her husband is protected from the angry, anonymous accusations that eventually reach him and members of his temple. Indicative of the time, the threats are absorbed with fear, but also with a degree of acceptance.

“Tell me, Al, didn’t you get any phone calls?” Becker looked blank, but Wasserman’s face began to color. “Ah, I see you got some, Jacob,” Casson went on. “What kind of calls?” asked Becker. “Tell him, Jacob.” Wasserman shrugged his shoulders. “Who pays attention? Cranks, fools, bigots, am I going to listen to them? I hang up on them.”

Kemelman’s cultural criticism is secondary to his explanations of Judaism, particularly in its differentiation from Christianity. He uses the lone post-war planned neighborhood in Barnard’s Crossing as a metaphor for the early 1960s interaction between Jews and Gentiles, which he paints as a sometimes tense live-and-let-live arrangement.

The entire atmosphere seemed designed to keep one’s neighbor at arm’s length, not from unfriendliness but rather as though each householder were content to cultivate his own garden.

Thankfully, Kemelman isn’t content to cultivate his own garden behind a privacy fence. He wants his Christian neighbors to see how the rabbi grows his plants; he wants the Gentiles to come for a visit, to understand how he nurtures his charges, always conscious of their roots while encouraging new growth and beautiful blooms.

In one exchange, Rabbi Small explains that, unlike many Christian denominations, Jews aren’t expected to take everything on faith.

“The point is that if you’re going to have discipline, you have to have someone whose authority is not subject to question.” “I suppose that’s the difference between the two systems,” said the rabbi. “We encourage the questioning of everything.”

In more than one instance, Kemelman lets the rabbi explain that, again unlike many Christian traditions, Jews don’t ask God for anything in their prayers.

“We don’t so much ask for things that we don’t have as give thanks for what we have received.” “I don’t understand.” The rabbi smiled. “It’s something like this. You Christians say, ‘Our Father who art in Heaven, give us this day our daily bread.’ Our comparable prayer is, ‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who bringest forth bread from the earth.’ That’s rather over-simplified, but in general our prayers tend to be prayers of thanksgiving for what has been given to us.”

Friday the Rabbi Slept Late isn’t a substitute for that world religions class in the college catalog, but by the end of the novel, readers are certain to take with them a greater sense of their Jewish neighbors and Judaism. For a contemporary audience, the book will also serve as a reminder that our anti-Semetic days aren’t so far behind us and that we see the vestiges of that bigotry in our own communities.

As a bonus, there’s a murder the rabbi happens to solve.