SOURCE: “A Rabbi Ponders Social Justice,” in Los Angeles Times Book Review, September 30, 1983, p. 4.

In the following review, Rubin offers a qualified endorsement of The Outsider.

In 1946, gentle, conscientious young David Hartman, formerly a U.S. Army chaplain, comes to a small Connecticut town to serve as rabbi to an even smaller Jewish congregation. He is accompanied by his bride, Lucy, who is also Jewish, but who does not share his religious beliefs or his idealism.

Howard Fast's latest novel follows the rabbi's story from his arrival up to 1977. Hartman suffers through the Rosenberg trial and execution, the ugliness of McCarthyism, repeated bouts of local anti-Semitism. He participates in freedom marches in the early days of the civil rights movement and later takes part in demonstrations against the war in Vietnam. But while he always seems to do the right thing, he spends much of his time feeling...