Later he began to focus more on themes relating to the Inquisition and Jewish cultural history.

Gordon's debut novel, The Rabbi, spent 26 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list in 1965.

[1] New York Times writer Carey Goldberg described a similar tension between Gordon's widespread popularity in Germany and relative lack of awareness in the United States in 1996.

[4] The reasons for the European success of his novel The Physician were discussed in the Forward.

[5] His novel Shaman won the first James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction in 1993.