I make no bones about the fact that I rarely write or read horror. It comes up in almost every conversation I have about being an SFF writer, because horror is often lumped in with SFF. I simply tell people I’m a delicate flower and move on, because I don’t want to get into a heavy discourse about the real reasons I have so much difficulty with the genre. Reasons that are inherently linked to my being a Jew.

As a child I was steeped in generational trauma – I had to clean my plate because my grandparents starved in the Holocaust, almost every holiday we celebrated featured someone trying to annihilate our entire people and the words Pogrom, Cossack, Inquisition, and nazi were far more familiar to me than the vocabulary I was supposed to be studying for the SAT. It’s even worse for kids today. With the advent of social media, and the platform it provides for anonymous racism and antisemitism, a thirteen-year-old can’t even post a video of himself laying tefillin without getting by hundreds of comments declaring he should have been sent to the gas chambers. Nope, there is enough horror in my real life. I don’t often seek to add more.

The Jewish Book of Horror, edited by Josh Schlossberg, changed some of that for me. In it there are stories ranging from the times of The Bible all the way to modern suburbia, each featuring their own version of what is considered horror, all tied together by the single thread of having been written by a Jew about Jewish topics. Unlike the usual horror offerings, I found these tales to be representative of a larger movement happening within the horror community of today. Marginalized writers are taking back the genre, using it to confront some of their own demons and show the world the horrors they personally experience. Instead of making me feel nauseous and sick, these stories inform and empower.

As mentioned, the level of gore ranges from the mildly creepy underpinnings of a normal society (The 38th Funeral by Marc Morgenstern, In the Red by Mike Marcus), to biblical stories explained (Ba’alat Ov by Brenda Tolian) to all out zombie apocalypse (How to Build a Sukkah at the End of the World by Lindsey King-Miller). Some contained familiar creatures from Jewish myth (The Rabbi’s Wife by Simon Rosenberg is a Golem story, Bar Mitzvah Lessons by Stewart Gisser features the Satan itself as a character ), while others utilized some of the sweeter bits of Jewish lore I’ve ever heard and turned them on their head (Forty Days Before Birth by Colleen Halupa revolves around the legend that a persons marital partner is decreed forty days prior to their birth). Others were downright gleeful (Demon Hunter Vashti by Henry Herz made me laugh out loud as did The Hanukkult of Taco WIsdom by Margret Treiber).

Horror is meant to offer a safe exploration of thoughts and ideas that are other to the reader, a way to delve into the depths of our nightmares and expose them to the light so that we might learn and grow as a society. As with any exploration, it should only be undertaken with the express permission of the reader. Therefore, If you find Holocaust narrative a difficulty topic (I do, there’s no shame in that) then you may wish to skip The Horse Leech Has Two Maws by Michael Picco which adds an additional layer of abomination upon a time when Jews were already subjected to horrors the likes of which no author has ever manage to replicate in fiction. It is interesting to note that the main character in this tale is in fact not Jewish. Instead he has been consigned to the camps for being a gay man. I appreciated this reminder that when one marginalized community falls the rest are sure to follow. Similarly, Elana Gomel’s Bread and Salt details what happens when Jews attempt to return to their ancestral homes after a war. Spoiler alert – they are not greeted with flowers and hugs.

Anyone that finds rape triggering may elect to skip John Baltisberger’s Eighth Night, which contains some references to sexual assault by demon. Those who have struggled with obtaining a Jewish divorce – a get – might find The Divorce From God by Rami Ungar to hit too close to home, although the twist at the end is not what you are expecting. The Hand of Fire by Daniel Braum revolves around a potential nuclear Holocaust involving Israel that may also be too real or anxiety provoking for some readers. And in content warnings people are not expecting, but I feel to my very core, if you are they type of Jew that worries about divine retribution for every single mistake you ever make in ritual observance then Phinehas the Zealot by Ethan K. Lee is not the story for you.

I was deeply disturbed, in the best possible way, by K.D. Casey’s story The Last Plague in which there is a modern day persecution of Jews. Same as Yesterday by Alter S Reiss filled me with a nostalgia only Catskill’s going, bungalow colony dwellers will ever truly understand (the line about the knish truck slayed me). The Wisdom of Solomon by Ken Goldman and Welcome Death by J.D. Blackrose both felt like modern day fairy tales. Not the Disney version, but the dark lush pieces The Brothers Grimm used to write.

There are stories here to entertain while they terrify- On Seas of Blood and Salt by Richard Dansky has a pirate Rabbi and a A Purim Story by Emily Ruth Verona is a clever take on parenting and Mazzik’s. There are stories here to make you pause – I’ll never look at the taslich ritual quite the same way now that I’ve read Vivian Kasley’s Catch and Release. In short, there are stories here for everyone. They key, as with all horror, is to find the ones that help you delve to the depths of your soul without losing your mind.

-This anthology featured an open call for stories, a process I believe helps improve equity in publishing –

Note- I received a reviewers e-book in exchange for an honest review.

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E Broderick is a writer and speculative fiction enthusiast. When not writing she enjoys epic games of trivial pursuit and baking. She currently lives in the U.S. but is eagerly awaiting the day a sentient spaceship offers to take her traveling around the galaxy.