of this book. Thanks also to Barbara D’Amato for her early support of this project.
Thanks to the members of the Faculty Association of Suffolk Community College/NYSUT-AFT Local 3038 and all my colleagues and superiors at SCCC for their support and for guiding me through the promotion and sabbatical application process, which was necessary for my sanity and went a long way toward making this book a reality, including Sarah Mackey Acunzo, Marie Hannah, Joseph Inners, Andrea Macari, Shaun McKay, Kevin Peterman, Rita Sakitt, Ellen Schuler Mauk, the infamous Prof. Dave Moriarty (“the Napoleon of crime"), Sandra Susman Palmer, Elaine Preston, Jane Shearer, Doreen Wald, and the staff in the Office of Instruction: Denise, Julie, Marie, and Marilyn. Thanks also to my student Tom Jordan, for letting me use one of his lines, Dana Loewy for the Prague connection, Daniel Vendrell for the Latin lesson, Konrad Bieber for the German books, and Patrick Kelso for providing the Jewish/Christian calendar for the year 5352/1592.
Other notables include Michael and Mary Mart of the Good Times Bookstore for all the books over the years, including the hard-to-find large format facsimile of the Prague Haggadah; James M. Gannon, Deputy Chief of Investigations, Cold Case Unit, Morris County, NJ, for his interrogation techniques; Nancy K. Yost for her display of selflessness in recommending my current agent; Donald Maass for giving me some free advice; Prof. Sara Lipton for getting me started in the right direction; John Westermann for his early comments; Angel B. Peña for his support; Mick and Keith for “Back-street Girl” Eddie Sullivan and Matthew Hochman at IMS for handling the Macintosh computer troubles; and my own personal “rabbi,” Dr. Carolyn Schwartz, for all her useful advice and counsel.
I would also like to thank the staff at the Museum of the City of Prague, who were so helpful with information about Langweil’s model (except for one guy, who was kind of a prick, but that’s how it is everywhere. Why should Prague be any different?); Aaron Kornblum of the Western Jewish History Center at the Judas L. Magnes Museum, for finding the information about Eva Kohen Bacharach; Zachary Baker of Stanford University; and Elise Fischer, Brad Sabin Hill, Yeshaya Metal, Vital Zajka, the late, great Dina Abramowicz, and the rest of the staff at the YIVO Institute in New York for providing access to rare books, articles, and documents.
Any novel with a plot and subject matter this ambitious requires a great deal of research. For general background, and to help re-create the spirit and consciousness of another age, I have fictionalized information—ideas, facts, and quotes—from scholarly, religious, and historical sources found mainly in the following works:
Israel Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages; George Alter, Two Renaissance Astronomers: David Gans, Joseph Delmedigo; Bengt Ankarloo and Stuart Clark, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe; Karen Armstrong, A History of God; The Artscroll Mesorah Series, Kaddish; Pesach; Shabbos; Shema Yisrael; The Artscroll Tanakh Series, Job; Jonah; Hanan J. Ayalti, Yiddish Proverbs.
Salo Wittmayer Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews; Judith R. Baskin, Women of the Word; Katerina Becková, Langweiluv Model Prahy (1826–1834); David Berger, “From Crusades to Blood Libels to Expulsions: Some New Approaches to Medieval Antisemitism” Michael R. Best & Frank H. Brightman, The Book of Secrets of Albertus Magnus; Hayim Nahman Bialik & Yehoshua Hana Ravnitzky (William G. Braude, trans.), The Book of Legends: Sefer Ha-Aggadah; Abraham P. Bloch, Day by Day in Jewish History; R. Ben Zion Bokser, From the World of the Cabbalah: The Philosophy of Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague; Heinrich Bornkamm, Luther and the Old Testament; Lewis Browne, ed., The Wisdom of Israel.
Elisheva Carlebach, “Between History and Hope: Jewish Messianism in Ashkenaz and Sepharad,” “Jewish-Christian Tension in Seventeenth-Century Prague: The Death of Simon Abeles,” and “Discipline and Deviance: Life in the Pre-Modern Jewish Community” Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Prioress’ Tale” Robert Chazan, In the Year 1096; John Robert Christianson, On Tycho’s Island; Abraham Cohen, Everyman’s Talmud; Mark R. Cohen, ed. and trans., The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi: Leon Modena’s Life of Judah; Bernard Dov Cooperman, ed., Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century; Petr Čornej and Jii Pokorný, A Brief History of the Czech Lands to 2000.
Abraham David, ed., A Hebrew Chronicle from Prague, c. 1615; Peter Demetz, Prague in Black and Gold; Max I. Dimont, Jews, God, and History.
Mark U. Edwards Jr., Luther’s Last Battles; Noah J. Efron, “Common Goods” in Diane Wolfthal, Peace and Negotiation; Yaffa Eliach, There Once Was a World; The Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Ed.;