Haskala I — Samuel Alexander Zervitz

Len Harris, the new editor of a Baltimore-based ethnic publication, Haskala, the genesis of which is pre-WW II, struggles with an identity crisis as does his journal. The publisher, Bernie Price, son of the late founder, Sidney Price, is determined to dismiss Haskala's ethnic slant and turn largely secular, a move to increase the ad base and readership.Meanwhile, Harris views his job as a pulpit of sorts and refuses to accept his publisher's diminished editorial position on spirituality. A war for space is on. Harris, struggling to view the world through the eyes of a Jewish journalist, meanwhile faces a messy divorce from an imported Scottish decorator, firm in the belief that her fortune depends on her lawyer's ability to nail her discarded spouse in divorce court.Harris, on the advice of a rabbi friend, hires his own attorney, a frightening character with duel American/Israeli citizenship who moonlights for Mossad. He crushes his opponent in court, as his angry ex-wife vows revenge by recruiting her soccer-playing Irish cousin, in the USA, fund-raising for his cause, the Irish Republican Army.No slouch, the cousin has thus far collected four million dollars. Only he needs a way to get it through airport security and out of the country. Meanwhile, Harris' attorney convinces his client the I.R.A. fundraising ex-wife's cousin trains Palestinians, is a threat to Israel and, he, Harris, must help stop him.Back at Haskala, publisher Bernie Price, about to fire his long-time printers and replace them with a computerized publishing set-up, underestimates them badly. Injured African American WW II vets, they are hired in 1945 by Haskala founder and publishing icon, the late Sid Price, father of Bernie. They live in a basement apartment adjacent to the Haskala print shop.Len Harris, on learning the printers will be fired and evicted from their apartment, vows to save them. Only they have plans to save themselves by bringing down Haskala. Their intention is to publish their own weekly version, an all-bigot issue, which they do and distribute. Price convinces himself Harris did it and puts out a contract on him when the printers' issue hits the streets and Haskala crashes.Harris, on the run with the four million in I.R.A. money, stolen from the I.R.A. fund-raiser in a scam using him to get the money out of the country, must deal with the wrath of Bernie Price while being pursued unknowingly by the IRA agent. Nothing is as it seems. Pursued by a contract killer and an Irish Revolutionary, how Len Harris survives is at the heart of this "dark" comic thriller.