Author Talk: Michael J Cooper on The Rabbi’s Knight
Date: April 14, 2026
Time: 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Location: MECA Offices, 1101 8th Street, Berkeley CA 94710
Join MECA in welcoming author Michael J Cooper as he introduces his newest book A Rabbi’s Knight and discusses his experience as a volunteer in Palestine – with special musical introduction by Cormac Gannon and Ibrahim Safi.
The talk will be followed by a Q&A and an opportunity to purchase books and have them signed by the author.
Entry is free, but because space is limited we ask that you RSVP in advance.
This event is dedicated to the memory of Barbara Lubin with 100% of funds raised to be donated to MECA
“The Rabbi’s Knight is instantly compelling and fascinating in its arcane plot and propulsive pacing. Literally, a page turner!” -Sylvia Boorstein, PhD, New York Times bestselling author of Happiness Is an Inside Job
“A well-written historical adventure story . . . with unexpected twists and turns that keep you hooked . . . an exciting and historically fascinating read.” -Andrew Kaplan, New York Times bestselling author of Blue Madagascar and the Homeland novels
The year is 1290. At the twilight of the Crusades, war-weary Knight Templar Jonathan St. Clair is garrisoned in the port city of Acre in the Holy Land. In possession of an ancient scroll with a cryptic inscription, he learns that it holds the key to unlock the secrets of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
But time is running out. Acre will soon come under siege, and the one man able to divine the scroll’s meaning, Rabbi Samuel of Baghdad, has been targeted for assassination. St. Clair apprentices himself to Rabbi Samuel and together they travel to Jerusalem. On their pilgrimage, they are hunted by scheming emirs in the service of a bitter enemy of Rabbi Samuel. But they are aided in their quest by others: a brilliant young scholar, Isaac of Acre; a powerful young Scotsman, William Wallace; a learned Muslim mathematician, physician, and cartographer, al-Hasani; and a beautiful independent-minded woman, Zahirah, who avoids serving in an emir’s harem by hiding in a leper colony on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.
Rabbi Samuel, St. Clair and the others will risk everything to fulfill their shared and sacred destiny as guardians of the Temple Mount.
MICHAEL J. COOPER recently retired after a forty-year career as a pediatric cardiologist on faculty at UCSF Medical Center, he returns to Israel/Palestine to volunteer his services to children who lack adequate access to care. Other than The Rabbi’s Knight, Cooper is also the author of a series of sequels: Wages of Empire and Crossroads of Empire, both set at the start of WW1, and Foxes in the Vineyard , set in 1948. All of his novels are linked together by the Sinclair/St. Clair blood line, as well as by Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Cooper and his wife live in Northern California with a neurotic but lovable golden retriever and a spoiled rotten cat. Three adult children occasionally drop by.