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Often pictured in Christian iconography as solitary figures, lost in a unique and incommunicable holiness, Rice's "holy family" of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, by contrast, is part of a large, boisterous, affectionate Jewish clan, living a full, observant Jewish life together, full of rituals and prayers and the rhythm of the holy day feasts.
Although Rice's hero is meant to be every inch the Jesus of the Gospels (she says she's proselytizing), she views her book as a kind of antidote to Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." She appreciated Gibson's film for its felicity to Catholic doctrine but disliked its portrayal of Jews.