The Hanukkah Gun

<I>The Hanukkah Gun and Other Secondhand Sol Old West Tales</I> is a collection of short stories about a nontraditional Jewish hero in the late 19th-century Arizona Territory. </P><P>A seller of secondhand goods Solomon Pliskin is closer to 5-feet-4 than the classic height of heroes 6-feet-4. Slight and self-deprecating balding and bearded he wears a wool suit not buckskins and chaps. He dons a bowler not a Stetson. Faith and family not firepower are his best defense against the dangers of the frontier. </P><P>With a gun molded from Hanukkah gelt he foils a bullying bigot; trying to do a mitzvah on Rosh Hashanah he rescues an innocent Indian from a lynch mob. And with a crock of chicken soup as his only weapon he prevents a drunk from ventilating a Sephardic Jew from San Francisco even thought he is lording it over Pliskin. As one fellow Jew notes of Secondhand Sol: 'For such a small man he sure sits tall in the saddle. </P><P>People of all beliefs can discover and enjoy universal themes in his adventures. As Pliskin says all good men and their families regardless of their faith deserve light in their lives. </P>