In Moscow at the height of the 1936 Stalinist purges, Grisha Shwartzman discovers on Rosh Hashanah-the Jewish New Year and Day of Judgment-that he is in danger of liquidation by the secret police he serves. In 1942, Yechiel Katzman finds himself on a train of imprisoned Jews as it leaves the Warsaw ghetto on Yom Kippur-the Day of Atonement-for "resettlement in the East." Stalin and Hitler decree certain death, but in the course of their experiences Grisha and Yechiel discover Jewish fates. Through memory, both men gain community, dignity, and the awareness of sanctity, Grisha's "Soviet" Rosh Hashanah and Yechiel's "Nazi" Yom Kippur are truly "Days of Awe."

About the Author
Allen Hoffman, an award-winning author of short stories and screenplays, was born in St. Louis and received his B.A. in American History from Harvard University. He studied the Talmud in yeshivas in New York and Jerusalem, and has taught in New York City schools. He and his wife and four children live in Jerusalem, where he teaches English literature and creative writing at Bar Ilan University.

Reviews
Praise for Two for the Devil: "Vividly chronicles the extraordinary daily lives of the citizens of Krimsk...[Mr. Hoffman's] sympathetic presentation of these characters reveals much about the tension between human desire and belief, about the complexities of conscience and commitment." - New York Times Book Review "First-rate fiction: reminiscent...of such precursors as Sholem Aleichem, but possessed of distinctive individual strengths and firmly rooted in its characters strange new land and even stranger adventures." - Kirkus Reviews "Hoffman fashions a haunting, bittersweet story of exile, dislocation and redemption in the Promised Land...Robust humor, insight into human nature and an absence of sentimentality augment Hoffman's storytelling skills." - Publishers Weekly, starred review



Book Information
ISBN 9780789203977
Author Allen Hoffman
Format Hardback
Page Count 254
Imprint Abbeville Press Inc.,U.S.
Publisher Abbeville Press Inc.,U.S.