“Jonathan Bockian’s WHAT WAS FORBIDDEN is a masterfully woven tale of love, loss, ideology, and resilience … a gripping literary mystery that explores not only who committed the crime—but why society might wish it were left unsolved … The historical grounding is impeccable … [Mordechai’s] story asks powerful questions about identity, freedom, and the cost of truth in a world unwilling to accept it. But it is Yehudit’s arc that gives the novel its emotional weight. Her quiet grief, her refusal to be silenced by the men around her, and her courage to confront the hypocrisy within her own community create a deeply compelling portrait of feminine strength in a patriarchal age … Bockian does not offer easy answers; instead, he forces readers to wrestle with moral ambiguity and the cost of justice when justice itself is inconvenient … With beautiful prose, richly developed characters, and thought-provoking themes, What Was Forbidden is both a mystery and a meditation on freedom, faith, and the struggle between progress and tradition. It will resonate with fans of historical fiction, literary mysteries, and stories that examine the enduring tension between private truth and public silence.”

— Jeyran Main, Review Tales

“Jonathan Bockians’s WHAT IS FORBIDDEN is an historical and philosophical mystery, different from Dan Brown’s, say, or Umberto Ecco’s, in his voicing of Jewish perspectives. While set in the same Venetian Ghetto as Shakespeare’s MERCHANT OF VENICE, the time is a century later. Bockian’s Ghetto is enlivened by his research, rich sensory descriptions, and complex characters, who, while solving a Jewish trader’s murder, must confront the historic “swerve” towards modernism, where fanaticism and faith become indistinguishable and sects and schisms presage today’s wars.”

— DeWitt Henry, founder of Ploughshares literary magazine, author of Top Cop Kills

“Tensely rendered, with flowing prose… A great historical fiction read.”

— Rachel Deeming, Discovery

“A terrific novel … Jon Bockian has given us an immensely literate, historically accurate, theological murder mystery. Even though the story is of Seventeenth Century Venice, it feels mysteriously contemporary ...”

— Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, Scholar-in-Residence at Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco, author of over a dozen books on Jewish mysticism and the novel Kabbalah: a Love Story.