The Rabbi's Wife The Bishop's Wife

The Rabbi's Wife, The Bishop's Wife is about the life of Joana HaLevi. Joana gave up what she treasured the most, her family, in order to maintain her Jewish faith. She lived in the Spanish cities of Barcelona and Burgos during the 14th and 15th centuries. As with most historical fiction novels of late, there is an alternating plot between 1391 and 2020. The publisher's summary:  

Spain, 1391.  Joana, wife of Schlomo HaLevi, the Rabbi of Burgos, mother of five, and daughter of a wealthy and respectable family, is living a comfortable, carefree life.  Until her world is shattered without warning one summer day.  While her husband Shlomo, now Pablo de Santamaria, joins the Catholic church and takes their family with him, Joana struggles with the unrelenting yearning for her children.  Will her soul find relief?  Will her children return to her side?

Jerusalem, 2020.  Ruth is struggling with personal conflicts when the COVID-19 pandemic shakes her world, adding loneliness and isolation to her struggle.  With her new online friend, she embarks on a voyage that will set Joana HaLevi's memory free from oblivion. 

I absolutely loved Joana's story. Ruth's story was rather slow. I don't think the alternating plot worked well. Why not just feature Joana who is the heroine of the novel?  Joana had to deal with the forced conversion of Jews to Christianity.  Her husband, the Chief Rabbi of Burgos, Schlomo Halevi, converted and took custody of all of her children and raised them as Christians. He studied for the priesthood in Rome and eventually became the Archbishop of Burgos. Schlomo's sister Maria also converted and she raised their kids. Joana had to arrange with Maria each week in order to see her children. 

The authors stated that they believed that Schlomo's conversion was real because he was wealthy enough not to need to convert for power and prestige. However, I disagree.  I think he would have lost his standing in the community if he did not convert. While he would have kept his money, he wanted to keep the power he had as the king's tax collector.  Schlomo changed his name to Pablo Santamaria and also changed the names of his children too.  Joana became a strong woman from her adversities. She continued to practice Judaism and also continued to act as a rabbi's wife by taking care of the poor in her community. I cannot imagine myself handling what Joana had to handle. She is certainly a great example of persevering during trials.

The 2020 alternating plot was dull, especially in the beginning of the novel. As this plot advanced the reader gets a dose of genealogy research. However, it just was not executed well. In addition, there were alot of grammatical errors. This does not usually bother me but there were sentences so poorly formed that I was not sure what their meaning was. The novel was translated into English from Hebrew so perhaps there were translation issues. 

If this book was just about Joana I would rate it 5 out of 5 stars.  With the alternating plot problems, I am downgrading the rating to 3 out of 5 stars.