The Intercessor

In The Intercessor seasoned author Arlene Goldbard spins a tale of mystery, magic and healing in the visible and beyond-visible worlds. We meet Sharon, a diminutive, salty private investigator who finds herself serving as spiritual advisor to an unlikely assortment of folks in her small Jewish community. Allowing her characters to speak in their own voices, Goldbard reveals their redemptive journeys with wry humor and psychological savvy, weaving a rich tapestry of Jewish mystical lore and ultimately challenging readers to open our minds to the possibility of unseen powers guiding us all. A delightful and engrossing read! --Rabbi Diane Elliot, author of This Is the Day and Traces.
A wise meditation on identity and values in today's polarising world, The Intercessor is rich in powerful narrative and vivid characters. Rarely have the spiritual and the everyday been brought into dialogue so convincingly. Though it is rooted in a distinctive culture, The Intercessor is universal in its spirit. I highly recommend this thoughtful novel to every reader with an open and curious heart. -François Matarasso, community artist and author of A Restless Art
If Jewish renewal, and indeed our human species, survives and flourishes over the next thousand years, Arlene Goldbard's book will likely be part of the canon.
-Barry Barkan, Ashoka Fellow, Founding Co-Director, Elders' Guild
The Intercessor is a novel made of linked stories, each narrated by a different character. It asks how we make community. As the book unfolds, seven diverse members of the Jewish Renewal movement set out to refresh tradition to benefit the living, showing up in multiple worlds: physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. They tell their stories of seeking love and healing, facing ethical and social predicaments, knowing when to join hands and when to walk their own paths.
Sharon Marks is a private investigator with a sideline in mystery, magic, and healing. The six other people who each narrate a chapter seek her help in wrangling the thorniest challenges they've faced. Nomi Riordan is a blonde, blue-eyed former Baptist who was plagued in childhood by nightmares that end up inspiring her to convert. Jonathan Fox is a much-beloved Jewish Renewal rabbi who died of COVID in 2020 and shares his story from the world to come. Isamu Goodman is a young half-Ashkenazi/half-Okinawan man whose life is shaped by questions of identity, especially as the Israel-Gaza war unfolds. Along with the other characters, they face and overcome dilemmas including abusive leaders, malicious online gossip, and relationships gone terribly wrong, bringing the wisdom of the past and their own experiences to the needs of the present. They are very different, but even in times like these, all desire the same things: to live in truth, to offer care, to receive love, to experience true presence.

Arlene Goldbard is a New Mexico-based writer, painter, speaker, consultant and cultural activist. Books include The Wave, The Culture of Possibility: Art, Artists & The Future, New Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development, and In The Camp of Angels of Freedom: What Does It mean to Be Educated? She formerly served as Chief Policy Wonk of the USDAC (usdac.us) and President of The Shalom Center (theshalomcenter.org).