The Matzah Ball

 The Matzah Ball is the book everyone is talking about right now, written by Jean Meltzer.  This entertaining novel is hitting bookstores just in time for giving as a fun Hanukkah gift.  

It is a fun, quirky and a little kooky plot that really does carry a deeper meaning.  It brings to the forefront so much of the difficulty Jews have struggled with for centuries in America, though I hesitate to write the overused theme, “the December dilemma” this time for adults.  It also looks at the 

Rachel Rubinstein-Goldberg has grown up feeling the scrutiny of being the Rabbi’s daughter. Her mother is the Rabbetzin extraordinaire and Rachel has felt the pressure to always behave and appear as the proper role model.  So when she decides that Christmas is a much more romantic, colorful holiday, she feels a need to keep her obsession secret.   She earns her living writing Christmas romance novels under a pseudonym and collecting Christmas tchotchkes.   She keeps this all hidden in her Upper East Side, New York apartment.  

The only friend who knows her secrets is Mickey, a childhood friend.  They have been friends since they were eight and even experienced Rachel’s greatest disappointment, when her first love at summer camp played a mean prank on her.  She has never forgiven Jacob Greenberg for the embarrassment she remembers.  

Jacob, of course, saw the incident differently and has held onto his feeling of abandonment all these years.   When the now successful party planner comes back to New York to throw the biggest fundraiser party of his career, the extravaganza, Matzah Ball Max, their lives all cross paths again.

When Rachel’s editors tell Rachel she must write a Hanukkah romance this year and she decides to get a ticket to the Hanukkah soiree hoping to find the inspiration she needs to change her mind about the minor Jewish holiday not having enough magic to create a romance novel around.

Of course added to the misunderstanding of their childhood, Rachel and Jacob have to work through a few current disagreements, which brings us to the crux of the plot, girl meets boy, wonders if she can trust him, they argue, and it all leads to romance.  Though along the way  there is laughter, tension, suspense and the big finale..the eighth night of Hanukkah!