Author, Longtime Teacher at Skidmore Brings New Novel to Northshire Books March 5 

SARATOGA SPRINGS — In the ruins of postwar Europe, the world’s leading expert on the Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism goes on a hair-raising journey to recover sacred books stolen by the Nazis. 

Steve Stern, author of the new novel “A Fool’s Kabbalah,” will be traveling to Saratoga Springs to discuss his new historical novel, with Jay Rogoff at Northshire Books, at 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 5,

The novel features numerous real-life historic figures, reimagines Gershom Scholem’s quest and how it sparked in him the desire to realize the legacy of his dear friend, the brilliant philosopher Walter Benjamin. 

At the end of the Second World War Gershom Scholem, the magisterial scholar of Jewish mysticism, is commissioned by the Hebrew University in what was then British-ruled Palestine to retrieve a lost world. He is sent to sift through the rubble of Europe in search of precious Jewish books stolen by the Nazis or hidden by the Jews themselves in secret places throughout the ravaged continent. The search takes him into ruined cities and alien wastelands.

For 30 years, Stern taught at Skidmore College, the majority of those years as Writer-in-Residence. He has also been a Fulbright lecturer at Bar Elan University in Tel Aviv, the Moss Chair of Creative Writing at the University of Memphis, and Lecturer in Jewish Studies for the Prague Summer Seminars. He is the author of 13 previous books, including, most recently, The Village Idiot. He splits his time between Brooklyn and Ballston Spa, New York.

“A Fool’s Kabbalah” was published Feb. 18 by Melville House.