The Garden of Ruth: Eva Etzioni-Halevy
By: 
Anyone raised in a Judeo-Christian environment will be familiar with the story of Ruth, the Moabite princess who married an Isrealite and begat the line of King David. As with most biblical stories we are given only the bare bones, just enough to inform us but little enough to make us curious about the story behind the story. In The Garden of Ruth, Eva Etzioni-Halevy pulls out the threads of the story and brings Ruth to life in vivid color and detail.
The story is centered around a young Israelite named Osnath. Osnath is a rare girl in that she can read and write and she is very familiar with the Torah. She was raised by a mother who was a scribe and an educated father who taught her the joys of reading. Osnath loves the old stories and when she travels to Bethlehem to visit extended family she comes across a great mystery embedded in the stories of Ruth. The family of Jesse shares an adjoining house and their scroll room contains many secrets about Ruth's life. As Osnath digs deeper into the story she will have to push past many defenses. The secrets of Ruth's life are being protected by her decendants, led by her great-grandson Eliab who is torn by his family loyalty and his growing love for Osnath. Osnath herself must risk becoming entrapped by her love for Eliab's brother David, even knowing that David is destined for something greater then marriage and family. She finds herself fighting to remain true to who she is, and her desire to make it known who Ruth truly was and the things she overcame to become the matriach of a line of kings.
This book is an amazing story and worth the read. The bible is full of heroic women but many times their stories are lost or forgotten. The author has done a beautiful job of pulling together many disparate threads and creating a tale of strong women in a time when women's choices were very limited. Osnath and Ruth are determined to fight for their rights and the men that they want, even if those men are not the wisest choices. They do what they must in order to survive and it is a tale worth telling. I highly recommend this book.
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