Books like Dancing on Tisha B'av by Lev Raphael
Lev Raphael’s debut collection "Dancing on Tisha B'av" presents nineteen short stories that explore the lives of gay Jews confronting the intersections of faith, sexuality, and historical memory. In the title tale, a gay student publicly humiliated in a university synagogue confronts his relationship to God and Judaism by dancing on the solemn day of Tisha B'Av. Other narratives, such as "War Stories," follow a New York cab driver who believes himself the sole survivor of his family, and "Abominations," where a disgruntled sister compares the torching of a gay student’s dorm to Holocaust conflagrations. Across the collection, characters range from Holocaust survivors raising gay children to young adults grappling with orthodoxy, revealing the generational tensions and shared experiences of discrimination and resilience.
First publish date: 1990
Genre: LGBTQ+ Fiction/Gay Fiction
Authors: Lev Raphael
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