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When the rabbi's cat wins the gift of speech by swallowing a parakeet, he uses it both to tell lies (that he didn't eat the parakeet, for example) and to tell his own story. But now that he's lied, the rabbi forbids him from talking to his daughter, Zlabya, and vows to educate him in the Torah. For his part, the cat wants to study Kabbalah and he wants a bar mitzvah. But the question of whether a feline can be Jewish must first be intensely debated by the cat and his master. When Zlabya falls in love with a dashing young rabbi, both are crestfallen and jealous, but the journey to meet the young man's secular family in Paris provides additional opportunities for the rabbi and his cat to discuss both the important and petty details of life. Vibrant with the colors, textures, and feeling of a lost world (one where Jews and Arabs easily co-existed) "The Rabbi's Cat is populated with wholly believable and endearing people and one truly unforgettable cat.… (more)
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The rabbi's daughter gets married to a French rabbi and they honeymoon in Paris to meet with the in-laws. The widowed rabbi and the cat accompany them and the rabbi's faith is tested along the way, as well as his tolerance for those who don't practice the faith as he is believes it should be practiced.
You don't have to be Jewish to appreciate this graphic novel. It's funny, sad and is a wonderful little theological study.
The cat, although he can be a smart aleck, is also fiercely loyal to his family and often the voice of hesitation and reluctance to change in such trying circumstances. Which, in some ways, makes him the most human of them all, as he both protests and adapts to the flurry of inevitable changes to his home.
Then, one day, I happened upon a beautiful copy at a fantastic local used book store. So, I gave it another shot. I opened the book and this time actually read a page at random. I literally laughed out loud. I flipped to another page, and the same thing happened. And then again.
First of all, I don't usually laugh out loud while reading; normally, I keep it to myself. Secondly, its been a very long time since I've had a good laugh. So, I decided to purchase the copy, and I haven't regretted a bit. The artwork even grew on me.
The Rabbi's Cat collects the first three tales: The Bar Mitzva, Malka of the Lions, and Exodus. The loosely connected stories take place in 1930s Algeria and follow the lives of a widowed rabbi, his beautiful daughter, and, of course, their cat (who also happens to be the narrator). In The Bar Mitzva the cat gains the power of speech by eating the family parrot and immediately begins telling lies. In Malka of the Lions a dear family friend and relative comes to visit. And in Exodus the rabbi, the cat, and the newly married daughter and her husband travel to Paris to meet the in-laws. All three stories are delightful, charming, and funny. The characters and range of themes covered in this short book are wonderful.
The cat, of course, is simply marvelous.
Experiments in Reading
I loved the first story in this
Recommended for anyone interested in artwork, Judaism, France-Algeria, or morality.
The second volume was my favorite of the three. It told about the Rabbi's fear for having his official position as Rabbi of the community taken away by the government because of his poor French, and of the courtship of his daughter. The mischievious cat continues narrating the story with his many sarcastic comments. And the third volume is about a trip that the family takes to Paris to visit the family of the new husband of the Rabbi's daughter. This one had a lot about the cultural and religious shock that the Rabbi faced in secular France, and showed the secularization of the Jews there. The Rabbi himself seems to have a religious transformation at the end. At one point he asks, "So, my friends, if we can be happy without respecting the Torah, why should we exhaust ourselves to apply all these precepts that make life so complicated?" and then he answers his own question, "Well, the truth is, I don't know."
I alternated between really liking this graphic novel and its humor and wit and insight, and being uneasy with the cat's sarcasm and skepticism regarding matters of faith. The artwork was uneven. Most of it was wonderful, especially the panels showing Algeria...detailed, colorful and evoking a feel for that country. The cat was weird, though. His poses were very catlike, but he just looked really strange in many of the panels...perhaps on purpose. His face would sometimes look dog-like with a long muzzle, and other times he would look rat-like with his ears and expression, and he was very straggly, which is probably pretty accurate for an Algerian cat. Finally, the discussions on sex were crude...just imagine having a discussion about sex with a tomcat. The author did a good job of showing what that might be like. Soooo, I would say enjoyable, with some reservations.
Recommended for anyone interested in artwork, Judaism, France-Algeria, or morality.