AustLit

A New York Times review described this work as

'a rabbinical tale set on a distant planet with many names and a maddening conundrum: a minority of the indigenous population (who have ''scaly skin like alligators and yellow eyes and seven fingers on each hand'') claim to be Jews – not converts to Judaism but naturally evolved Jews with their own covenant, Torah and Talmud (actually two Talmuds, just as on Earth), their own form of Hebrew and so on. When Rabbi Isaac ibn Chabib of Philadelphia is sent by his rabbi to investigate this preposterous claim, he is understandably skeptical. What he finds among the aliens forces him to reconsider his views on revelation, faith and the Holocaust, which – I can't say any more without doing violence to Dann's conception'.

Source:

Gerald Jones, 'Science Fiction', New York Times, 5 January 2003 (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/05/books/science-fiction.html)