Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

Yid Lit: Richard Zimler

Novelist Richard Zimler writes suspense thrillers set in Jewish history, earning him the moniker “the Jewish Dan Brown.”

His novel, “The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon” is a murder mystery set in Portugal during the Spanish Inquisition. “The Seventh Gate” is takes place in 1930s Berlin, where a hero must translate medieval Kabalistic texts to save the world from Hitler and Stalin. Zimler grew up an Ashkenazi Jew in New York, but became fascinated with the Sephardi Jewish experience, another subject about which he often writes.

Zimler’s new novel, “The Warsaw Anagrams” is set in the Warsaw Ghetto during the early 1940s. In it, a middle-aged psychiatrist must unravel the mystery of who killed his grand nephew, but he is an ibur, or a ghost, with remaining task to complete before he can cross over to the other side. The book is already a bestseller in Europe.

I spoke with Richard Zimler recently, where he called in from his home in Portugal.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.