The Fastest Draw in the Shul

Here’s one part of the Wild West that the Frisco Kid never saw.

Rabbi Harvey, the comic book character, lives in a frontier town. He works as the town rabbi, greeting townsfolk, prospectors, and visitors at a “Stump the Rabbi” stand on Main Street. Here, he answers questions–practical, philosophical, or otherwise–for five cents apiece. Some of the people’s problems are originals; some are adapted from stories and parables in the Talmud–but they’re all unexpected and fun.

In the just-released Rabbi Harvey and the Wisdom Kid, the third book in the series by artist and writer Steve Shenkin, Harvey gets a nemesis–a rival rabbi from back East who sets up his own wisdom stand across the street. It soon becomes clear that the West isn’t big enough for both of them. Rabbi Harvey finds himself in stickier and stickier situations–kidnapped, outsmarted, and framed for a robbery he didn’t commit (or did he?).

Soon, the two rabbis plan to resolve their differences in the only way possible. Rabbi Harvey is called out and, in good old-west style, the two Jews work it out with an old-fashioned quick-draw…of rabbinical wisdom.