Ms Ragen has been accused of plagiarism by three separate authors:
Michal Tal, has sued Naomi Ragen for copyright infringement. Tal claims that The best-selling The Ghost of Hannah Mendes, published in 1998, is little more than a rip-off of her The Lion and the Cross.
In another case, Sarah Shapiro claimed that another Ragen novel, Sotah, includes elements lifted from her book, “Growing With My Children: A Jewish Mother’s Diary”, published in 1990 by Targum Press.
Cynthia Rosengarten, a Babov Hassid living in Bnei Brak claims that Ragen’s book, The Sacrifice of Tamar (1994) is based on her novel – based on her son’s arranged marriage, that was published in 1991.
The three cases are all handled by Advocate Corinaldi who also contacted Ms Ragen, allegedly on behalf of the Artscroll publishing House in the US, claiming copyright infringement against a cookbook that they published. Here’s the problem. Ms Ragen contacted the editor-in-chief of Artscroll and also their Israeli distributor and both deny having engaged Corinaldi.
Ms Ragen, who denies all the charges of plagiarism, has complained to the Israel Bar Ethics Committee about Corinaldi, and, in response to their inaction, has sued them and Corinaldi in Court. Judge Sokolov of the Tel Aviv District Court ruled that her court had no jurisdiction over the Israel Bar.
Ragen is accusing Corinaldi, who has sent her threatening letters on behalf of his clients, of extortion. He presumably claims to be representing his clients. We assume that he is working on a percentage for the various poorly known authors, and is going up against Naomi Ragen as she is a well-known and thus ‘soft’ target. That is legitimate, if unpleasant for Ms Ragen. However, pretending to represent a publisher that does not acknowledge having engaged him is more problematic.
We note that when claiming plagiarism it is extremely difficult to show sufficient similarity between literary works to win in court. Whilst it is more than likely that in one or more of these cases, subconsciously or otherwise, Ms Ragen was influenced by the works of others, perhaps including these authors, both in terms of plot and literary style, it is true of most works of literature bear relationships to previous works.
Even the famous Siphonaptera:
Big fleas have little fleas,
Upon their backs to bite ‘em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas,
and so, ad infinitum.
Is based on an earlier poem by Swift “On Poetry: a Rhapsody” (1733):
The vermin only teaze and pinch
Their foes superior by an inch.
So, naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite ‘em,
And so proceed ad infinitum.
It is thus not surprising that any works set against a common backdrop, in this case, the ultra-Orthodox (hareidi) Jewish Community, will enviteably have some common features. One of Naomi Ragen’s books reminded me of “The Chosen” by Pottok. The works weren’t all that similar, one related to the son of a Rebbe and the other to a daughter of a Rebbe…
We are reminded of the case when Leon Uris was sued for Libel by a Dr Dering, mentioned in Exodus as being a Doctor who performed inhumane experiments in a concentration camp. Uris subsequently wrote a novel, QBVII, based loosly on the trial. Perhaps Ms Ragen, when looking for new material, could consider writing a novel about a lawyer based on Corinaldi, or about a Jewish author accused of plagiarism?
Very well written, to the point, and highly entertaining!