Snow in August

"Brooklyn 1947: The war veterans have come home and in one close-knit working class neighbourhood, an 11-year-old Irish Catholic boy has just made friends with a lonely Rabbi from Prague. An evocative deeply affecting fable tells of an unusual friendship."@en
"In this novel set in 1940's Brooklyn, Hamill writes a tender, sometimes magical story about an unlikely friendship. Young Michael Devlin and Rabbi Judah Hirsch become friends when they meet during a blizzard. For the Irish Catholic boy, the rabbi's stories captivate his imagination and transport him to times and places his beloved comic book heroes have never visited. For the rabbi, Michael's instruction on the language of baseball and American culture opens up an equally strange and wonderful world. But the neighborhood toughs despise Jews and their friends. Trapped in a dangerous spiral of ethnic hatred, Michael and Rabbi Hirsch are left with one last hope - a miracle. Poised gracefully between fantasy and reality, Snow in August is a beautifully-crafted tale of friendhip and loyalty."@en
"In the year 1947, Michael Devlin, eleven years old and 100 percent American-Irish, is about to forge an extraordinary bond with a refugee of war named Rabbi Judah Hirsch. Standing united against a common enemy, they will summon from ancient sources a power in desperately short supply in modern Brooklyn--a force that's forgotten by most of the world but is known to believers as magic. -Back cover."