The year is 1506, and the streets of Lisbon are seething with fear and suspicion when Abraham Zarco is found dead, a naked girl at his side.

... From these twin interests came The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon, a murder mystery about a “found” manuscript.

The disappointment begins when the murder mystery takes up the rest of the book.

The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon starts off pretty good with very detailed discriptions of 15th century Portugal. Richard Zimler's The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon is not a particularly religious novel, but it uses religion to great dramatic effect. The hero is Berekiah Zarco, a young manuscript painter hunting for the killer of his uncle, both being kabbalists, Jews practicing their faith in secret after obligatory conversion to Christianity Last Kabbalist of Lisbon (Zarco 1) This was a murder mystery set during the period of persecution of Jews in early 16th century Portugal. The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon by Richard Zimler is a treasure box of a book, filled with gems of beautiful writing, philosophical questions, and contemplations on right and wrong, love and betrayal. "The last kabbalist of Lisbon" is a man named Berekiah Zarco, a jew living in Lisbon in the beginning of the 16th century. tightly woven one at that --- THE LAST KABBALIST OF LISBON is also a book about faith. He has published eight novels over the last fifteen years, including the famous The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon. Just a few years earlier, Jews living in Portugal were dragged to the baptismal font and forced to … As the apprentice to a Kabbalist master, Berekiah learns the most sacred lessons of the Torah, the holy book. Although its story takes place during the 16th- century slaughter of Jews in Portugal, and its main characters are Jewish mystics, Zimler is less interested in describing their spiritual lives than in plotting a fantastic murder mystery. Despite the recent embrace of Kabbalah as the contemporary celebrity spiritual plaything, it's unlikely that the Hollywood pack will spend many hours studying the intricacies of this willfully arcane first novel by an American writer who lives and teaches in Portugal. He has won numerous prizes for his work, and is a contributor to the Los … The Last Kabbalist ofLisbon, an international best seller, is an extraordinary novel that transports listeners into the universe of Jewish Kabbalah during the Lisbon massacre of April 1506. A columnist's praise in the June 9, 2000, issue of the Mexico City newspaper Excelsior alerted me to "The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon." Richard Zimler was born in New York and studied journalism at Stanford University. I found the plot delightfully engaging; it was hard to put the book down. It is apparently based on a real manuscript discovered by the author in Istanbul in 1990, written by Berekiah Zarco who fled to Constantinople in 1507 along with thousands of other Hispanic (Sephardic) Jews. originally published : 1998 A novel on the 1506 massacre of Jews in Lisbon. A religious youth given to religious visions, he welcomes the I found many of the insertions of Jewish (Kabbalist) mythology and philosophy out … The hero is Berekiah Zarco, a young manuscript painter hunting for the killer of his uncle, both being kabbalists, Jews practicing their faith in secret after obligatory conversion to Christianity The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon by Richard Zimler is a treasure box of a book, filled with gems of beautiful writing, philosophical questions, and contemplations on right and wrong, love and betrayal.