Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home

· Recorded Books · Narrated by George Guidall
5.0
1 review
Audiobook
6 hr 36 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook

With his absorbing mystery series, best-selling author Harry Kemelman transports you to the closely-knit Jewish community at Barnard's Crossing, a small city near Boston. Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home portrays the unassuming Rabbi Small joyously preparing to celebrate Passover. However, the holiday season is marred when local violence, racism, and misplaced pride run amok. Miffed over the sanctuary's new seating policy, several families are secretly planning to start their own temple in an unoccupied mansion in the country. When some teenagers break into the house for a party-and one ends up dead-the temple plot is interrupted. Suddenly Rabbi Small must discover what really happened, or the whole community will self-destruct. Savvy Rabbi Small combines earthly chutzpah and divine wisdom to solve the mysterious death that has the entire police force befuddled. Personally approved for this unabridged recording by the author's estate, veteran narrator George Guidall breathes life into the persistent rabbi and his ambitious congregants.

Ratings and reviews

5.0
1 review
Janice Tangen
February 13, 2021
amateur-sleuth, law-enforcement, small-town, Jewish, Jewish-law, murder, murder-investigation, suspicion***** I think that the publisher's blurb should be rewritten after all these years. Originally published June 1, 1969, this story is timely for 2021 just as it was then. The attitude of the Jewish and non-Jewish people of Barnard's Crossing, Massachusetts might just surprise some of the current protesters. The story begins with synagogue politics near Passover and moves into murder and marijuana sales with local college students in the middle. The local police tend toward a nonresident, but Rabbi Small has no such agenda. Good story and particularly apt. George Guidall is well suited as narrator.
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About the author

Harry Kemelman was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1908. After studying English Literature at Boston University and earning an M.A. from Harvard University in 1931, Kemelman worked as a teacher in several Boston high schools, and later became a private businessman. During this time, he also pursued a career as a freelance writer. Kemelman is best known for his mystery-based rabbi books about David Small, a rabbi who solves murder cases. His early stories appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. His first rabbi novel, Friday the Rabbi Slept Late, received the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1964. Some of Kemelman's other novels in the rabbi series include Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry, Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home, Monday the Rabbi Took Off, and Conversations with Rabbi Small. He died in 1996, at the age of 88. George Guidall is one of the most prolific narrators of audiobooks in the world. He has recorded nearly 650 unabridged novels, everything from "Crime and Punishment" and "The Iliad" to "Snow Falling on Cedars." He began his career as an actor, appearing on Broadway and touring Europe with Helen Hayes in the "Glass Menagerie," " Miracle Worker" and "The Skin of Our Teeth." He received an Obie Award for Best Performance Off-Broadway, and has continued his performances in theater for over 40 years. Guidall has also appeared on television, with roles on the soap "One Life to Live" and "Law and Order," and in movies such as "Malcolm X" and "Tales from the Darkside." His first job reading audiobooks was for the Library of Congress' American Foundation for the Blinds' Talking Books. Since then he has won the most prestigious Audiobook Award, the Audie Award, for Best Unabridged Narration of a novel for his recording of John Irving's "A Widow for One Year." He won the Audie again in 2000 for Wally Lamb's "I Know This Much is True."

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