The Primrose Path

Darleen R. Golke is a high-school teacher-librarian in Winnipeg,
Manitoba.

Following her grandmother’s death, 14-year-old Debbie Mazur and her
family move from the West Coast to eastern Canada. Debbie finds herself
in a new school in an unfamiliar Jewish Orthodox environment. She soon
becomes friends with a group of girls who teach her Orthodox ways. The
charismatic and handsome Hebrew teacher and principal of the school,
Rabbi Werner, charms and fascinates Debbie until his teasing and sexual
touching make her uncomfortable and fearful. Debbie’s confusion
prompts her to confide some of her discomfort to her father, who
immediately initiates a complaint with the board about the Rabbi’s
dealings with children and women, among them Debbie’s own mother. The
Rabbi denies all charges and attempts to manipulate and intimidate the
girls into lying for him. His supporters soundly condemn Debbie and the
others who level charges of inappropriate behavior.

Matas effectively shows how power, combined with a charismatic
personality, can overwhelm truth and ethics and permit an abuser of
women and children to go unpunished. Debbie is an appealing and engaging
narrator, drawing the reader into her confusion, her growing unease, and
her disappointment at the outcome. Drawing upon a quotation from Hamlet,
Matas refers to the “primrose path of dalliance” Rabbi Werner
“treads” while exhorting his congregation to practise the extremes
of Orthodoxy. Her book includes an afterword about abuse and a six-page
glossary of terms that might he unfamiliar. Highly recommended.