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The Last Miracle: Jewish Stories
Five tales of family breakdown, political struggle, and monomaniacal obsession from one of the defining voices of the European Jewish diaspora.
Moving back through time from the First World War to Ancient Rome, these stories play on the tension between religion, society and individual with masterful irony. We encounter heroes and bookworms, visionaries and gadabouts, patriarchs and rebels - united across the centuries by faith, and by the intensity with which they live and die, their individual passions blazing out against the forces of history.
Moving back through time from the First World War to Ancient Rome, these stories play on the tension between religion, society and individual with masterful irony. We encounter heroes and bookworms, visionaries and gadabouts, patriarchs and rebels - united across the centuries by faith, and by the intensity with which they live and die, their individual passions blazing out against the forces of history.
- GenresFictionShort Stories
288 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 11, 2025
About the author
Stefan Zweig
2,614 books11.4k followersStefan Zweig was one of the world's most famous writers during the 1920s and 1930s, especially in the U.S., South America, and Europe. He produced novels, plays, biographies, and journalist pieces. Among his most famous works are Beware of Pity, Letter from an Unknown Woman, and Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles. He and his second wife committed suicide in 1942.
Zweig studied in Austria, France, and Germany before settling in Salzburg in 1913. In 1934, driven into exile by the Nazis, he emigrated to England and then, in 1940, to Brazil by way of New York. Finding only growing loneliness and disillusionment in their new surroundings, he and his second wife committed suicide.
Zweig's interest in psychology and the teachings of Sigmund Freud led to his most characteristic work, the subtle portrayal of character. Zweig's essays include studies of Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens, and Fyodor Dostoevsky (Drei Meister, 1920; Three Masters) and of Friedrich Hölderlin, Heinrich von Kleist, and Friedrich Nietzsche (Der Kampf mit dem Dämon, 1925; Master Builders). He achieved popularity with Sternstunden der Menschheit (1928; The Tide of Fortune), five historical portraits in miniature. He wrote full-scale, intuitive rather than objective, biographies of the French statesman Joseph Fouché (1929), Mary Stuart (1935), and others. His stories include those in Verwirrung der Gefühle (1925; Conflicts). He also wrote a psychological novel, Ungeduld des Herzens (1938; Beware of Pity), and translated works of Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, and Emile Verhaeren.
Most recently, his works provided the inspiration for 2014 film The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Zweig studied in Austria, France, and Germany before settling in Salzburg in 1913. In 1934, driven into exile by the Nazis, he emigrated to England and then, in 1940, to Brazil by way of New York. Finding only growing loneliness and disillusionment in their new surroundings, he and his second wife committed suicide.
Zweig's interest in psychology and the teachings of Sigmund Freud led to his most characteristic work, the subtle portrayal of character. Zweig's essays include studies of Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens, and Fyodor Dostoevsky (Drei Meister, 1920; Three Masters) and of Friedrich Hölderlin, Heinrich von Kleist, and Friedrich Nietzsche (Der Kampf mit dem Dämon, 1925; Master Builders). He achieved popularity with Sternstunden der Menschheit (1928; The Tide of Fortune), five historical portraits in miniature. He wrote full-scale, intuitive rather than objective, biographies of the French statesman Joseph Fouché (1929), Mary Stuart (1935), and others. His stories include those in Verwirrung der Gefühle (1925; Conflicts). He also wrote a psychological novel, Ungeduld des Herzens (1938; Beware of Pity), and translated works of Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, and Emile Verhaeren.
Most recently, his works provided the inspiration for 2014 film The Grand Budapest Hotel.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 20, 2025
Who remembers Scholem Asch, Franz Werfel or Lion Feuchtwangler? In our past century's upheaval, caught between and during the great wars of Central Europe, these assimilated Jewish storytellers took on historical epics, sometimes Christian in content, generated film adaptations and topped the bestseller charts. Today, the revival of attention generated leaves arguably paired contenders amid small-press backlists. Joseph Roth, in a revenant production-line beyond the grave reminiscent of Roberto Bolaño, revives, if often in recycled English versions from by now rather musty predecessors.
Yet, this milieu resists mothballs. At least for one chronicler of this age of {Sachertorte} and coffee. Pacing ahead of this venerable if semi-obscure ensemble, readers today find a contender in their lead.
Roth's contemporary, Stefan Zweig, must credit from his postmortem perch Wes Anderson's {The Grand Budapest Hotel} for his resurrection on screen and sustained in print. Pushkin Press' go-to German translator, the late Anthea Bell, gains lead credit in {The Last Miracle: Jewish Stories}. In a crowded field, Bell's prominence as the most prolific of Zweig's interpreters ensures she remains the prime mover responsible for bringing Zweig's diverse backlist back into print. Rather than a fussy tangent, this editorial comment admits Jonathan Katz, Peter Gay, Joel Rotenberg and Leon Ferousse among others, who offer deft evocations of Zweig for demand today. Their subtle nuances may assist literate, discerning consumers. Additionally, the novella concluding this anthology first appeared in 1936; soon after through Eden and Cedar Paul's voices. These entries date back to 1901 in the original.
For Zweig's wry style, redolent of psychological depth, rhetorical shifts in class and dialect and finely honed emotional registers of the educated ranks of the Austro-Hungarian empire and its aftermath, challenges those of us unable to comprehend such sources. This exacting tone, which depends upon hesitation, ambience and suggestion, cannot survive blunt dubbing into demotic candor or dumbed-down chatter. Like Anderson's movie, the atmosphere radiates with wistful musings amidst decline.
In the opening, Mendel the Bibliophile sets up shop in Vienna's Café Gluck. Impecunious, eccentric even by a bookseller's thrifty regimen and a failed yeshiva student seduced by texts in substance and as commodities, he's available for consultation day long into night. He's so immersed in recall of his trade that even a Great War passes him by. When his Russian origin and paucity of proper papers fail to dissuade imperial bureaucracy, his predicament--not uncommon for those familiar with Zweig's oeuvre and his own circumstances when a second global conflict erupts--resonates and long lingers.
As with "Downfall of the Heart," explicitly Jewish identity shadows itself in a second depiction of a defector from tradition. At sixty-five, a father feeling as if a {black mole} burrows into his bowels, undermining his conscience, turns towards tardy repentence via a rabbi after torment. His daughter of nineteen, he surmises one midnight prowl, enjoys the favors of a swain. This unfounded supposition destroys his sanity. It's typically melodramatic, for even in Zweig's capable craft, his tales can tilt into despairing soliloquies testing the patience of audiences of our less indulgent and more permissive age.
In another period of strife, "The Miracles of Life" relates two journeys. From Venice, an artist weary of wine and whores searches for inspiration in Antwerp. He seeks his model for a "Madonna of the Wounded" in Esther, a refugee from a pogrom in Germany. She rebuffs his earnest attempts to woo her into the Catholic embrace, while around them intolerance returns. Flanders folk revolt against the Spanish occupation and seek to destroy any delineation of iconic expression, defacing any delicacy.
It's reminiscent of Thomas Mann's odd fable retelling the Holy Sinner, as well as subversive if hushed reflections on puzzles of belief told by Zweig's troubled peers. Action steps aside and uneasy thought advances. A mood of contemplation as armed factions clash around a crowded continent for sectarian mastery suggests that morals of such lessons echo within alleys and naves of a newer, angry Europe.
Near Poland's frontier, perhaps distant relatives of Esther, certainly loyal to her heritage, rush onto a frozen lake, as Flagellants, Christian fanatics, hunt their enemies down during Hanukkah. "In the Snow" sketches a vignette, a forlorn raw image which repeats in Zweig's panicked and persecuted scenarios. It's brief, a glimpsed mass terror, as asylum seekers dash towards safety. Or its icy mirage.
Finally, the Roman remnant of those earlier exiled ancestors of Zweig and his beleagured Ashkenazi compatriots resisting their relentless foes epitomizes itself in the lengthier plot (nearly half of {The Last Miracle}) of "The Buried Candelabrum." Teutons and Vandals force the capital of doomed Latin Imperium into capitulation. It's 455. Young Benjamin follows the rumors whispered in the diaspora of the last remnant of the Temple in Jerusalem, a sacred menorah, as it's hauled off to Arian Carthage, to Justinian and Belisarius' Byzantium and then the Holy Land port of Joppa. In antiquated cadences of the Pauls, this extended itinerary trundles rather than scurries along, and the somber phrasing and sonorous prose carry the fusty air of the heyday of Ben Hur. Zweig's nimbler as he skips and dashes.
Uneven, if a timely compendium, whose arrangement hints at the quintet's themes of dispersion, hate, loss, mourning and endurance. Bell's results meet expectations of current trends, which favor Zweig's penchant for interior exploration of motives as Jewish characters strive to outwit antagonists. The Paul couple demonstrate how Zweig's themes emerge from ancient anxiety to embed a Hebraic dogged determination to endure despite fierce forces which refuse to let up against their descendants.
ARC Edelweiss. Standard disclaimer.
Yet, this milieu resists mothballs. At least for one chronicler of this age of {Sachertorte} and coffee. Pacing ahead of this venerable if semi-obscure ensemble, readers today find a contender in their lead.
Roth's contemporary, Stefan Zweig, must credit from his postmortem perch Wes Anderson's {The Grand Budapest Hotel} for his resurrection on screen and sustained in print. Pushkin Press' go-to German translator, the late Anthea Bell, gains lead credit in {The Last Miracle: Jewish Stories}. In a crowded field, Bell's prominence as the most prolific of Zweig's interpreters ensures she remains the prime mover responsible for bringing Zweig's diverse backlist back into print. Rather than a fussy tangent, this editorial comment admits Jonathan Katz, Peter Gay, Joel Rotenberg and Leon Ferousse among others, who offer deft evocations of Zweig for demand today. Their subtle nuances may assist literate, discerning consumers. Additionally, the novella concluding this anthology first appeared in 1936; soon after through Eden and Cedar Paul's voices. These entries date back to 1901 in the original.
For Zweig's wry style, redolent of psychological depth, rhetorical shifts in class and dialect and finely honed emotional registers of the educated ranks of the Austro-Hungarian empire and its aftermath, challenges those of us unable to comprehend such sources. This exacting tone, which depends upon hesitation, ambience and suggestion, cannot survive blunt dubbing into demotic candor or dumbed-down chatter. Like Anderson's movie, the atmosphere radiates with wistful musings amidst decline.
In the opening, Mendel the Bibliophile sets up shop in Vienna's Café Gluck. Impecunious, eccentric even by a bookseller's thrifty regimen and a failed yeshiva student seduced by texts in substance and as commodities, he's available for consultation day long into night. He's so immersed in recall of his trade that even a Great War passes him by. When his Russian origin and paucity of proper papers fail to dissuade imperial bureaucracy, his predicament--not uncommon for those familiar with Zweig's oeuvre and his own circumstances when a second global conflict erupts--resonates and long lingers.
As with "Downfall of the Heart," explicitly Jewish identity shadows itself in a second depiction of a defector from tradition. At sixty-five, a father feeling as if a {black mole} burrows into his bowels, undermining his conscience, turns towards tardy repentence via a rabbi after torment. His daughter of nineteen, he surmises one midnight prowl, enjoys the favors of a swain. This unfounded supposition destroys his sanity. It's typically melodramatic, for even in Zweig's capable craft, his tales can tilt into despairing soliloquies testing the patience of audiences of our less indulgent and more permissive age.
In another period of strife, "The Miracles of Life" relates two journeys. From Venice, an artist weary of wine and whores searches for inspiration in Antwerp. He seeks his model for a "Madonna of the Wounded" in Esther, a refugee from a pogrom in Germany. She rebuffs his earnest attempts to woo her into the Catholic embrace, while around them intolerance returns. Flanders folk revolt against the Spanish occupation and seek to destroy any delineation of iconic expression, defacing any delicacy.
It's reminiscent of Thomas Mann's odd fable retelling the Holy Sinner, as well as subversive if hushed reflections on puzzles of belief told by Zweig's troubled peers. Action steps aside and uneasy thought advances. A mood of contemplation as armed factions clash around a crowded continent for sectarian mastery suggests that morals of such lessons echo within alleys and naves of a newer, angry Europe.
Near Poland's frontier, perhaps distant relatives of Esther, certainly loyal to her heritage, rush onto a frozen lake, as Flagellants, Christian fanatics, hunt their enemies down during Hanukkah. "In the Snow" sketches a vignette, a forlorn raw image which repeats in Zweig's panicked and persecuted scenarios. It's brief, a glimpsed mass terror, as asylum seekers dash towards safety. Or its icy mirage.
Finally, the Roman remnant of those earlier exiled ancestors of Zweig and his beleagured Ashkenazi compatriots resisting their relentless foes epitomizes itself in the lengthier plot (nearly half of {The Last Miracle}) of "The Buried Candelabrum." Teutons and Vandals force the capital of doomed Latin Imperium into capitulation. It's 455. Young Benjamin follows the rumors whispered in the diaspora of the last remnant of the Temple in Jerusalem, a sacred menorah, as it's hauled off to Arian Carthage, to Justinian and Belisarius' Byzantium and then the Holy Land port of Joppa. In antiquated cadences of the Pauls, this extended itinerary trundles rather than scurries along, and the somber phrasing and sonorous prose carry the fusty air of the heyday of Ben Hur. Zweig's nimbler as he skips and dashes.
Uneven, if a timely compendium, whose arrangement hints at the quintet's themes of dispersion, hate, loss, mourning and endurance. Bell's results meet expectations of current trends, which favor Zweig's penchant for interior exploration of motives as Jewish characters strive to outwit antagonists. The Paul couple demonstrate how Zweig's themes emerge from ancient anxiety to embed a Hebraic dogged determination to endure despite fierce forces which refuse to let up against their descendants.
ARC Edelweiss. Standard disclaimer.
April 22, 2026
This collection moves backwards in time, reflecting on the ways that Jewish identity--and humanity as a whole--has persevered across the ages. Reviews of the individual stories below.
***
Buchmendel - 3/5
This remarkable man knew nothing about the world outside books, for to his mind all the phenomena of existence began to seem truly real to him only when they were cast as letters and assembled as print in a book, a process that, so to speak, had sterilized them.
This is a sad little tale of a man out of time. There's nothing too impressive happening here, but I always enjoy a story of monomania—it's in the same vein as Zweig's "Chess Story." A melancholy meditation on what becomes of those unique "characters" known for their charming strangeness.
Downfall of the Heart - 4/5
Something was happening, he knew it vaguely, something was happening while he lay like this, reflecting passionately on his life. Something was coming to an end. What was it?
If I wanted to be reductive and obtuse, I could call this a story about a man being driven insane by learning that his daughter is sexually active. In reality, it's a story about an unhappy man who realizes that his two closest relationships in life—those of his wife and daughter—are purely transactional. First furious, then shattered, then apathetic, he begins to retreat from the world. The unbearable nature of living a socially accepted life reminds me a bit of Antal Szerb's Journey by Moonlight, though that one is a bit more fanciful. If you think capitalism has only been wrecking people's minds for the past thirty years, think again.
The Miracles of Life - 1.5/5
It was as if something great beyond all words was in the room with them, rushing by on invisible wings.
This is the thinnest and most overwrought of the bunch, despite being far longer than it should've been. Recruited by a wealthy merchant, an old painter sets out to depict a shy Jewish girl as the Virgin Mary for an altarpiece at their local cathedral. For reasons that are unclear to me, she becomes obsessed with the baby who is being depicted as Jesus. The obvious interpretation here is that the models become avatars of the figures they're posing as, with the painter as God, but that reading breaks down pretty quickly. It's uninteresting and bloated.
In the Snow - 4/5
Again and again, their fate has always brought the oppressed back to the necessity of relying on themselves and their God. No third party could be trusted.
A depressing and finely told story about the plight of Jews. Despite the mention of Flagellants and horse carts, this tale feels timeless—the story of untold pogroms, persecutions, and expulsions faced by Jews throughout history. Stylistically, the sparseness of the prose is a great palate cleanser after "The Miracles of Life."
The Buried Candelabrum - 3/5
Never before had the name of God, mentioned so often by Rabbi Eliezer during the night walk, been full, as now, of meaning and form.
The longest in the collection by far, this reads like a fable. All of these are classified as "Jewish stories" according to the cover, but this felt the most Jewish to me. Perhaps that's because of the long passages of a Rabbi discussing Jewish history and the necessity of being a witness, or the religious ethics that come into play towards the end. It's a satisfying story and I liked it, but it's far too long-winded, and some strategic tightening would've really made it sing.
____________________
Global Challenge: Austria
***
Buchmendel - 3/5
This remarkable man knew nothing about the world outside books, for to his mind all the phenomena of existence began to seem truly real to him only when they were cast as letters and assembled as print in a book, a process that, so to speak, had sterilized them.
This is a sad little tale of a man out of time. There's nothing too impressive happening here, but I always enjoy a story of monomania—it's in the same vein as Zweig's "Chess Story." A melancholy meditation on what becomes of those unique "characters" known for their charming strangeness.
Downfall of the Heart - 4/5
Something was happening, he knew it vaguely, something was happening while he lay like this, reflecting passionately on his life. Something was coming to an end. What was it?
If I wanted to be reductive and obtuse, I could call this a story about a man being driven insane by learning that his daughter is sexually active. In reality, it's a story about an unhappy man who realizes that his two closest relationships in life—those of his wife and daughter—are purely transactional. First furious, then shattered, then apathetic, he begins to retreat from the world. The unbearable nature of living a socially accepted life reminds me a bit of Antal Szerb's Journey by Moonlight, though that one is a bit more fanciful. If you think capitalism has only been wrecking people's minds for the past thirty years, think again.
The Miracles of Life - 1.5/5
It was as if something great beyond all words was in the room with them, rushing by on invisible wings.
This is the thinnest and most overwrought of the bunch, despite being far longer than it should've been. Recruited by a wealthy merchant, an old painter sets out to depict a shy Jewish girl as the Virgin Mary for an altarpiece at their local cathedral. For reasons that are unclear to me, she becomes obsessed with the baby who is being depicted as Jesus. The obvious interpretation here is that the models become avatars of the figures they're posing as, with the painter as God, but that reading breaks down pretty quickly. It's uninteresting and bloated.
In the Snow - 4/5
Again and again, their fate has always brought the oppressed back to the necessity of relying on themselves and their God. No third party could be trusted.
A depressing and finely told story about the plight of Jews. Despite the mention of Flagellants and horse carts, this tale feels timeless—the story of untold pogroms, persecutions, and expulsions faced by Jews throughout history. Stylistically, the sparseness of the prose is a great palate cleanser after "The Miracles of Life."
The Buried Candelabrum - 3/5
Never before had the name of God, mentioned so often by Rabbi Eliezer during the night walk, been full, as now, of meaning and form.
The longest in the collection by far, this reads like a fable. All of these are classified as "Jewish stories" according to the cover, but this felt the most Jewish to me. Perhaps that's because of the long passages of a Rabbi discussing Jewish history and the necessity of being a witness, or the religious ethics that come into play towards the end. It's a satisfying story and I liked it, but it's far too long-winded, and some strategic tightening would've really made it sing.
____________________
Global Challenge: Austria
October 20, 2025
it's ok, I'm over my disappointment that four of the five stories are already published in the complete short stories by Pushkin Press. That's on me- I should have done my homework more rigorously.
Only the last one here ('The Buried Candelabrum') was an undiscovered gem.
Still, reading through them all again, I came to have a keener appreciation of the subtlety and finess of Zweig's prose and meticulous plot structure.
I did struggle most with the 'Miracles of Life' story, because it felt that the young girl, Esther, is patronized and belittled. I certainly would NOT be so bold as to assume that absolutely all young women just want to hold a baby and that'll sort them all out, poor dears!!!
But then I remember that Zweig is writing from a world now long dispersed, with assumptions and expectations that were of his time, if not ours. And in really, what's really going on here? What's revolutionary is that Zweig makes time to consider what a young lady is feeling at all, and to carefully and systematically work through the trauma of bereavement and orphanhood. He seeks to understand the individual's psychology, and that is still, even now, a pretty radical position to hold. Yes, there's the heavy weight of Marianism implicit in the modelling for the Virgin Mary, but the story finishes with the suggestion that transcendence over trauma is available.
The last story ('The Buried Candelabrum') shows Zweig bearing towards the profoundly spiritual, almost mystical nature of the Jewish experience. This is a touching story, for Zweig, at the time of writing, could in no way have predicted the creation of the state of Israel. Indeed, at the time of writing, the Jewish diaspora was undergoing a whole new level of terror and extermination at the hands of the third Reich and it's allies. Zweig himself, escaped to South America, but ultimately did not live to see the end of the war. Overwhelmed by what he saw as the flourishing of darkness all around him.
I will never not love Zweig's gentle humanism, his patience and his genteel optimism. Dear publishers, if you ever read this (unlikely, I know), and if you ever discover some unpublished works. by Zweig, please do publish them!
Only the last one here ('The Buried Candelabrum') was an undiscovered gem.
Still, reading through them all again, I came to have a keener appreciation of the subtlety and finess of Zweig's prose and meticulous plot structure.
I did struggle most with the 'Miracles of Life' story, because it felt that the young girl, Esther, is patronized and belittled. I certainly would NOT be so bold as to assume that absolutely all young women just want to hold a baby and that'll sort them all out, poor dears!!!
But then I remember that Zweig is writing from a world now long dispersed, with assumptions and expectations that were of his time, if not ours. And in really, what's really going on here? What's revolutionary is that Zweig makes time to consider what a young lady is feeling at all, and to carefully and systematically work through the trauma of bereavement and orphanhood. He seeks to understand the individual's psychology, and that is still, even now, a pretty radical position to hold. Yes, there's the heavy weight of Marianism implicit in the modelling for the Virgin Mary, but the story finishes with the suggestion that transcendence over trauma is available.
The last story ('The Buried Candelabrum') shows Zweig bearing towards the profoundly spiritual, almost mystical nature of the Jewish experience. This is a touching story, for Zweig, at the time of writing, could in no way have predicted the creation of the state of Israel. Indeed, at the time of writing, the Jewish diaspora was undergoing a whole new level of terror and extermination at the hands of the third Reich and it's allies. Zweig himself, escaped to South America, but ultimately did not live to see the end of the war. Overwhelmed by what he saw as the flourishing of darkness all around him.
I will never not love Zweig's gentle humanism, his patience and his genteel optimism. Dear publishers, if you ever read this (unlikely, I know), and if you ever discover some unpublished works. by Zweig, please do publish them!
June 30, 2026
Stefan Zweig was apparently a well-well known pre World War II author who fled the coming Nazi threats to him and his wife and wound up in Brazil. Sadly he and his wife committed suicide in 1942. This collection of his Jewish themed short stories I found randomly in the Jewish section of Barned and Noble in New York City. I admit, I had never heard of this author.
There are five of his short stories included in this volume, set from pre-war Austria "Buchmendel," to around the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 CE, "The Buried Candelabrum." The order of the stories goes back into Jewish history from his time to ancient times, with each focused on a specific character, a book seller, a rich Jew who can't control his daughter and wife, an orphan Jewess who poses for an artist's Madonna in a church but absolutely refuses to convert to the chagrin of her portrait painter, to an entire community forced to flee a pogrom, to the last work of the Menorah.
The last story tells of the Menorah, part of the spoils of the Holy Temple destroyed on the 9th of Av of the year 70 CE and possibly pictured on the Arch of Titus in Rome. This story is a fascinating view of Jewish history told through the last man to actually see the Menorah when it was held captive by Rome and the Emperor Justinian. The story is very reminiscent of the lamentations said in the synagogue on the fast of the 9th of Av. This story, first published in 1937 under the cloud of the coming Holocaust, gives me hope, that despite the events of October 7 and the public rise of anti-Semitism, that the Menorah remains to light the Jewish people and they will (he could not have known of the founding of the State of Israel in 1948) ultimately triumph and restore its light.
There are five of his short stories included in this volume, set from pre-war Austria "Buchmendel," to around the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 CE, "The Buried Candelabrum." The order of the stories goes back into Jewish history from his time to ancient times, with each focused on a specific character, a book seller, a rich Jew who can't control his daughter and wife, an orphan Jewess who poses for an artist's Madonna in a church but absolutely refuses to convert to the chagrin of her portrait painter, to an entire community forced to flee a pogrom, to the last work of the Menorah.
The last story tells of the Menorah, part of the spoils of the Holy Temple destroyed on the 9th of Av of the year 70 CE and possibly pictured on the Arch of Titus in Rome. This story is a fascinating view of Jewish history told through the last man to actually see the Menorah when it was held captive by Rome and the Emperor Justinian. The story is very reminiscent of the lamentations said in the synagogue on the fast of the 9th of Av. This story, first published in 1937 under the cloud of the coming Holocaust, gives me hope, that despite the events of October 7 and the public rise of anti-Semitism, that the Menorah remains to light the Jewish people and they will (he could not have known of the founding of the State of Israel in 1948) ultimately triumph and restore its light.
December 31, 2025
the first book i finished in 2025 was a collection of zweig stories and so is the last. beautiful, beautiful stories. the miracle of life particularly struck me this time - it hadn’t left nearly as strong of an impression the first time i read it. and i remembered that last year i noticed that each of his stories come in the form of an overheard conversation, a letter whose contents are slowly revealed, a memory disclosed at night in private. it gives you this (absolutely irresistible) feeling that you’re privy to some big and personal secret. genius
February 14, 2026
A mixed bag - some of the stories are gripping and unforgettable. One I had to skip past.
April 5, 2026
I enjoyed the two stories I read (particularly Buchmendel) but felt it easier to abandon (perhaps to pick up again at a later date) because it was a collection of short stories.
May 16, 2026
One of the most powerful books I have read.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews