Maddening, insane, brilliant, Fragments of the Brooklyn Talmud by Andrew Ramer is unsettling and strange.
I read this book for Tikkun Leil Shavuot, wanting something different, and the book certainly delivered the goods. Ramer's work is difficult and frustrating. It is, in that sense, like the Talmud that precedes it, a work of great importance that is unstructured, rambling, profound, and humorous. And as in reading the Talmud, I come away from Ramer's book wondering just what we are supposed to take from this text.
Read this book but be prepared to feel deeply conflicted. Ramer has given us something that is both amazing and frightening. Let us hope we don’t get the world and (parts of) the Jewish future depicted here.
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