Gershom Scholem has arrived in Offenbach am Main to take on an impossible quest. This professor of Jewish mysticism wants to bring back as many of the books that formerly belonged to Jewish people murdered by the Nazis to Israel, where they can be kept safe for use by scholars. In the years after the war, the Offenbach Archival Depot held millions of books stolen by the Nazis while people tried to figure out what should be done with them. It wasn’t always possible to find the original owners or their descendants. Some books were repatriated to their countries of origin; others were sent to the US Library of Congress and other libraries around the world. A Fool’s Kabbalah, by Steve Stern, follows Gershom as he combs through the mountains of books in Offenbach am Main and travels around Germany, Czechia, and Poland to recover yet more Jewish books for his university in Israel. A Fool’s Kabbalah also contains the story of Menke Klepfisch, a man who cannot resist a joke or a prank even when his quest for a laugh gets people killed...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.