{"id":7017,"date":"2010-06-09T06:00:34","date_gmt":"2010-06-09T12:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=7017"},"modified":"2010-06-01T13:28:05","modified_gmt":"2010-06-01T19:28:05","slug":"the-fifth-servant-by-kenneth-wishnia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/the-fifth-servant-by-kenneth-wishnia\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fifth Servant by Kenneth Wishnia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/216.125.140.44\/uhtbin\/cgisirsi\/x\/0\/0\/57\/5?searchdata1=ocn317824593&amp;user_id=davmainweb\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7023 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/fifth-servant.jpg?resize=300%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/fifth-servant.jpg?w=300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/fifth-servant.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Set in 16th century Prague, Wishnia&#8217;s new mystery transforms\u00a0Jewish sexton,\u00a0Ben-Akiva, and his\u00a0mentor, the famous Rabbi Loew, into an effective detective team in <a href=\"http:\/\/216.125.140.44\/uhtbin\/cgisirsi\/x\/0\/0\/57\/5?searchdata1=ocn317824593&amp;user_id=davmainweb\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>The Fifth Servant<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 Just before the start of Passover, a young Christian girl is found murdered inside a Jewish shop, which triggers accusations of blood libel and\u00a0revives the\u00a0threat of retribution against the entire Jewish community.\u00a0 As the newly arrived shammes in Prague, Ben has three days to prove that someone else is responsible for the crime, other the the arrested shopkeeper, Federn.\u00a0 Though Ben gains the support of Rabbi Loew, he is hampered by the Inquisition and by\u00a0ghetto restrictions, so he \u00a0must depend upon his clever\u00a0wit and mazl (luck).<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll admit that for the first 50 pages or so, I had to keep checking the glossary &#8212; I really don&#8217;t have a strong background in 16th century Jewish terminology!\u00a0 Still, most of the unfamiliar phrases were readily explainable within their context, so it really didn&#8217;t disrupt my enjoyment of the book. The characters are well-developed and the story is\u00a0richly layered with both spiritual and historical insight, but it is\u00a0the fast-paced tension that makes this a true\u00a0page-turner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Set in 16th century Prague, Wishnia&#8217;s new mystery transforms\u00a0Jewish sexton,\u00a0Ben-Akiva, and his\u00a0mentor, the famous Rabbi Loew, into an effective detective team in The Fifth Servant.\u00a0 Just before the start of Passover, a young Christian girl is found murdered inside a Jewish shop, which triggers accusations of blood libel and\u00a0revives the\u00a0threat<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/the-fifth-servant-by-kenneth-wishnia\/\">[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,8],"tags":[616,1220,699,638],"class_list":["post-7017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-staff-picks","tag-historical-fiction","tag-jewish-history","tag-jews","tag-murder-mystery"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-1Pb","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7017"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7047,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7017\/revisions\/7047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}