The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish

Rachel Kadish’s The Weight of Ink is possibly my favorite book of 2018. In every page, I could feel Kadish’s passionate commitment to her characters and to the historical period she describes. Her appreciation of the written word is evident as she captures both the smallest details and largest historical themes. At one level the novel is a mystery to be solved. Yet due to Kadish’s skills as a writer and thinker, we are exposed to other levels of inquiry and thought: philosophy, the nature of love, religious viewpoints, moral obligations, the existence of God, gender roles and the power of the past to affect the present. No lightweight list of ideas to contemplate.

The novel opens in 2000. Helen Watt is a Professor of History at a University in London. When a former student asks her to examine a cache of old letters discovered in a 350 year-old-home he recently inherited, Helen is astounded by what she finds. She knows immediately these letters, written in Hebrew and Portuguese from the 1660s, are historically significant.

The novel then shifts to London in 1657. We meet Ester Valasquez, a young woman in her late teens who was adopted by Rabbi HaCoen Mendes after her parents died. Rabbi Mendes and Ester have left Amsterdam and traveled to London where the Rabbi will lead a small Jewish community. Because he was tortured for not renouncing his faith during the Inquisition, Rabbi Mendes is now blind. Though the rabbi does not support women reading or writing, Ester is a skilled scribe and secretly assists with his correspondence.

Though 400 years separate Helen and Ester, both women seek to utilize their intellectual gifts. Their identities are intrinsically connected to their ability to think and express themselves by writing down their thoughts. Ester says, “.... the unpooling of ink has brought me much comfort always, and often have I written what I would not speak.” However, the religious, social and political customs of that time period do not allow women that option. Esters complains, “A woman’s body was a prison in which her mind must wither.” Nonetheless, Ester develops a way to communicate her own thoughts even as she continues to scribe for the Rabbi. This bold decision contributes to the mystery of these letters three centuries later. In 2000, women participate fully in academia. However, Helen Watt still faces sexism and isolation by the male colleagues in her department. Yet because of brave women like Ester Valequez, Helen Watt publishes her thoughts under her own name.

Kadish’s novel also illuminates the unfair and precarious plight of the Jews. Though fortunate to be in London and not Spain, the Jewish community of London in the late 17th century is at the mercy of the clerical and political leaders of London. An acquaintance of Ester says, “… to be a Jew in this world, I understand is a danger. If a Jew speaks the truth of his faith in the wrong moment, though that faith harms none, he brings down untold wrath.” Kadish depicts the texture of oppression the Jewish community faced during this time.

Rotating between two time structures can be difficult. Often readers connect to the characters in one time period but not characters in the other. In The Weight of Ink I felt immersed in the characters’ struggles from both time periods. At 560 pages, The Weight of Ink is not a short read, but it is an emotionally, intellectually and worthwhile one.