Yochi Brands' new novel unfolds the story of Baal Shem Tov through the eyes of his daughter, Adele, whose personality is as captivating and exciting as her father's. Yochi Brands, who won her hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic readers in her previous books, has harnessed herself here to a particularly difficult task, full of setbacks and pitfalls, and succeeded in it with dizzying success. For the first time, we understand how the Hasidism of the Baal Shem Tov developed, step by step, out of the falls and out of the ups and downs he experienced in his life, and how he created a revolution of individualism that was ahead of its time, when he determined that redemption will come when people get closer to their own soul. Adele is Brandes' most important and boldest book, yet the most fluent and readable of them all. It was called a roller coaster ride. A station chases a station and an event chases an event, and the events, characters and forces that changed the face of Judaism beyond recognition are revealed to the readers. Yigal Schwartz
