Literature of Destruction: Jewish Responses to Catastrophe » (1st Edition)

David Roskies, in one hundred powerful selections, presents the two-thousand year history of Jewish responses to castastrophe. The cyclical nature of violent regimes and their overthrow is delineated in these recurring images of sin, martyrdom, and retribution that have sustained the Jewish people despite pogroms, massacres, and expulsions -- from the destruction of the First Temple through the Holocaust to the eventual return to their homeland.

Library Journal

Editor Roskies, author of Against the Apocalypse (Harvard Univ. Pr., 1986), here presents a massive anthology of Jewish literary responses to catastrophe and persecutions from the Bible to the post-World War II era. In both the general introduction and specific introductions to each of the 20 historical periods, he clearly and succinctly explains the reason for the inclusion of each document, its place in the literary or historical tradition, and, where necessary, its relation to world literature. The anthology includes 100 documents, some appearing for the first time in English. Included are short stories, three novellas, poetry, sermons, chronicles, memoirs, and works set to music. Highly recommended.-- Maurice Tuchman, Hebrew Coll. Lib., Brookline, Mass.