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Sweet Like Sugar

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

An accidental friendship unfolds between a widowed octogenarian Orthodox rabbi and a gay, Jewish twenty-something in this witty & thoughtful novel.

In Yiddish, there is a word for it: bashert—the person you are fated to meet. Twentysomething Benji Steiner views the concept with skepticism. But the elderly rabbi who stumbles into Benji's office one day has no such doubts. Jacob Zuckerman's late wife, Sophie, was his bashert. And now that she's gone, Rabbi Zuckerman grapples with overwhelming grief and loneliness.

Touched by the rabbi's plight, Benji becomes his helper—driving him home after work, sitting in his living room listening to stories. Their friendship baffles everyone, especially Benji's sharp-tongued, modestly observant mother. But Benji is rediscovering something he didn't know he'd lost. Yet the test of friendship, and of both men's faith, lies in the difficult truths they come to share. With each revelation, Benji learns what it means not just to be Jewish, but to be fully human—imperfect, striving, and searching for the pieces of ourselves that come only through another's acceptance.

Praise for Sweet Like Sugar

"A story that is beautifully told, profound and funny." —Jonathan Rosen, author of Joy Comes In The Morning

"A stirring story about the face of love on many different levels." —Carolyn Hessel

"An unforeseen tale of friendship and faith." —Dave King, author of The Ha-Ha
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      July 11, 2011
      In Hoffman's solid second novel, after Hard, Benji Steiner is only moderately concerned with his Jewish faith until he meets Rabbi Jacob Zuckerman, an elderly man distraught over the death of his wife. Steiner starts to spend a lot of time with Zuckerman, who reconnects him to his Jewish identity and introduces him to the term bashert (soul mate; beloved). But when Steiner tells the rabbi that he's gay, Zuckerman retreats to religion: "The Torah says this is a grave sin.... You should find a wife and live properly." Steiner and the rabbi fall out, and Steiner flees to Florida, where he meets Irene, a woman who knew Zuckerman as a young man. Through Irene's lasting connection to the now ailing Zuckerman, Steiner learns a few things that help the two men make peace with themselves and each other. Hoffman's examination of the intersection between gay and Jewish identity raises potent questions about tolerance and understanding. Steiner is a familiar figure: a near-secular Jew with a more devout family struggling to negotiate his faith for himself. His conflict is personified well by Zuckerman, but their relationship, while believable, isn't enough to sustain the novel, and the difficult questions of identity resolve themselves a little too neatly.

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  • English

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