Horror

The heroes of the book “The Shtetl Book” are residents of the small Jewish town of Yavoritsy, who were faced with formidable otherworldly forces. Daniel Kluger defined the genre of his book as a “novel in stories”, its structure is close to the structure of the famous “Jungle Books” by Rudyard Kipling. At first glance, this definition seems there is no single hero and no single storyline. Only towards the end of the book does the reader begin to understand that such a hero is the entire Jewish community, which has been fighting evil from generation to generation.

This collection of books featuring Jewish main characters is decidedly non-comprehensive. As we come across books that are described as having Jewish main characters, we add them to this database. The creators of the Jewish Genre Reading Challenge have not read all (or even most) of the books in this database. We have gathered information from many sources and not all may be accurate. Inclusion of a book in our database does not imply endorsement or approval. There is always the possibility that antisemitism may be present in a book, either written into a character's experience or through malicious or ignorant caricature or stereotypical portrayal of Jewish characters and culture. Please take care of yourselves as you read.

PLEASE let us know if you encounter a book in this database that does not have a Jewish main character, if you have corrections or additions for a book's genre categories, or if you have any other concerns about the inclusion of a particular book in this database.