What Was Forbidden: a Venice Ghetto mystery
Jonathan Bockian
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars
4.00
· 1 ratings · 337 pages · Published: 20 Oct 2025
When Yehudit’s beloved brother Mordechai is found murdered, her search to know what happened upends her world. In his life, Mordechai—disaffected merchant, outspoken skeptic—secretly defied expectations his family, religion, and the Ghetto community placed on one of their own, and limits imposed by gentile Venice. As Yehudit exposes conflicts that shaped Mordechai’s final weeks, she increasingly must challenge restrictions and controls on her life as a woman. Yehudit’s determination to find and speak the truth sets her on a collision course with her family and the entrenched Ghetto power structure.
Inspired by a true event memorialized in the Venice Ghetto, WHAT WAS FORBIDDEN is set within the backdrop of two historical movements—one religious, the other political—each of which ignited hopes of freedom but in diametrically opposite ways.
Tagged as:
- europe 3
- southern europe 3
- italy 3
- city/urban 3
- religion 2
- historical 2
- historical fiction 2
- spirituality 1
- mystery 1
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- format - reader age
- adult fiction 1
- book 1