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Ruchama King Feuerman was born in Nashville, grew up in Virginia and Maryland, and when she was seventeen, bought a one-way ticket to Israel to seek her spiritual fortune. Her mother hails from Casablanca where her family lived for centuries. Her father is a third-generation American who was born and raised in the South.
Ruchama lived and taught in Israel for ten years. SEVEN BLESSINGS(St. Martin's Press), her celebrated first novel about match-making, earned her the praise of the New York Times and the Dallas Morning News, and Kirkus Reviews dubbed Feuerman the "Jewish Jane Austen." She wrote her second novel, IN THE COURTYARD OF THE KABBALIST, with the help of grants from the Christopher Isherwood Foundation and New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Her stories and essays have appeared in many publications, including The New York Times.
Ha'aretz: "An action-filled novel...a story of love transcending deformity, both inner and outer…extraordinary, delicate and memorable."
New York Times Book Review: "...a talented insiders' insider...[King]captures the subtlety and magic of [the Torah's] traditions..."
Inspiration for IN THE COURTYARD OF THE KABBALIST:
I once met a great kabbalist and heard him laugh. We actually laughed together. For years afterward, whenever I needed a lift, I would remember the rebbe's laughter - our co-mingled laughter - and it sustained me. Sometimes I think I wrote my novel in order to relive that laughter.
Researching the novel led me to kabbalists, Israeli ex-convicts, Arab laborers, archeologists, Temple Mount police men, connoisseurs of Israeli prison slang, and soup kitchens, among other places. One of the most transformative experiences was my time spent at a Jewish funeral home in New Jersey where I observed a ritual purification for a scene I was writing. Afterward, I volunteered at the Hevra Kadisha burial society for three years.
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