The Last Jew, (Paperback)

from tess_schoolmarm

[The Last Jew] takes place in the late 1400's in Spain which is under the control of the Inquisition. The protagonist of the story, Helkiah Toledano (Yonah) sees his family murdered as he makes an escape. The book is very rich in detail of the Church, the Inquisition, and the day to day lives of ...

from janerawoof

Gordon's scathing denunciation of prejudice and its effects, couched in a moving narrative. Yonah, a young Jew in 15th century Spain, is forced to flee his home of Toledo after his brother and father, the latter a talented silversmith, are killed in what we'd call a pogrom which followed Ferdinan...

from gildaclone

One thing that was striking about this book was the sense of dread, fear and inevitability you felt about the main character, always waiting for him to be exposed as a Jew and rooting for him not to be turned in to the Inquisition. This book was set in the time frame when the convivencia era of S...

from OccassionalRead

I have been a big fan of historical fiction ever since reading Gary Jenning's Aztec in high school. At its best, historical fiction is educational allowing the reader to experience an alien culture or different place, or a past epoch. In the case of The Last Jew you experience late 15th and early...

from maryreinert

Although I know very little about the Inquisition and do not have a strong historical background, I found this book interesting and thought-provoking. This is basically a survival story. Yonah learns to survive physically, mentally, and spiritually against huge odds. At times, I felt he was a bit...