The shoemaker's tale

Israel Ben Eliezer, the great Jewish mystic and miracle worker known popularly as the Baal Shem Tov or the Besht (1700-60), has inspired countless tales in European Jewish tradition. The founder of the Hasidic movement, the Baal Shem Tov preached that God could be found as much in nature, songs, and folk stories as in the pages of holy texts. His religious expression was one of joy and ecstasy - a radical shift from the predominant legalistic and rationalistic observance of Judaism. He traveled through Eastern Europe performing wonders and healings for his devout followers, and spawned a tradition of oral storytelling about his feats that continues among Hasidic Jews to this day. Mark Ari takes that tradition as his departure point in The Shoemaker's Tale, while adopting the larger canvas of a novel to explore more fully his characters and the oftentimes surreal world they inhabit. Here, shoes that force their owners to walk backwards, or an elderly couple that is transformed into a tree are part of life's fabric - perhaps emblems of divine intervention, perhaps the imaginings of a superstitious believer, but always juxtaposed with the real heartache and yearning of the world as we know it. A Chagall painting brought to life, The Shoemaker's Tale is a sweeping story of love, suffering, and the quest for meaning.