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Jews Versus #1
Jews versus Zombies
In Jews vs Zombies, editors Lavie Tidhar and Rebecca Levene have gathered together brand new stories from the light-hearted to the profound, with authors ranging from BSFA Award winner Adam Roberts to best-selling author Sarah Lotz, all asking, for the first time, the question you didn't even know you wanted answered - what happens when the Chosen People meet the Living Dead?
124 pages, Paperback
First published March 19, 2015
18 people are currently reading
355 people want to read
About the author
Lavie Tidhar
398 books730 followersLavie Tidhar was raised on a kibbutz in Israel. He has travelled extensively since he was a teenager, living in South Africa, the UK, Laos, and the small island nation of Vanuatu.
Tidhar began publishing with a poetry collection in Hebrew in 1998, but soon moved to fiction, becoming a prolific author of short stories early in the 21st century.
Temporal Spiders, Spatial Webs won the 2003 Clarke-Bradbury competition, sponsored by the European Space Agency, while The Night Train (2010) was a Sturgeon Award finalist.
Linked story collection HebrewPunk (2007) contains stories of Jewish pulp fantasy.
He co-wrote dark fantasy novel The Tel Aviv Dossier (2009) with Nir Yaniv. The Bookman Histories series, combining literary and historical characters with steampunk elements, includes The Bookman (2010), Camera Obscura (2011), and The Great Game (2012).
Standalone novel Osama (2011) combines pulp adventure with a sophisticated look at the impact of terrorism. It won the 2012 World Fantasy Award, and was a finalist for the Campbell Memorial Award, British Science Fiction Award, and a Kitschie.
His latest novels are Martian Sands and The Violent Century.
Much of Tidhar’s best work is done at novella length, including An Occupation of Angels (2005), Cloud Permutations (2010), British Fantasy Award winner Gorel and the Pot-Bellied God (2011), and Jesus & the Eightfold Path (2011).
Tidhar advocates bringing international SF to a wider audience, and has edited The Apex Book of World SF (2009) and The Apex Book of World SF 2 (2012).
He is also editor-in-chief of the World SF Blog , and in 2011 was a finalist for a World Fantasy Award for his work there.
He also edited A Dick and Jane Primer for Adults (2008); wrote Michael Marshall Smith: The Annotated Bibliography (2004); wrote weird picture book Going to The Moon (2012, with artist Paul McCaffery); and scripted one-shot comic Adolf Hitler’s I Dream of Ants! (2012, with artist Neil Struthers).
Tidhar lives with his wife in London.
Tidhar began publishing with a poetry collection in Hebrew in 1998, but soon moved to fiction, becoming a prolific author of short stories early in the 21st century.
Temporal Spiders, Spatial Webs won the 2003 Clarke-Bradbury competition, sponsored by the European Space Agency, while The Night Train (2010) was a Sturgeon Award finalist.
Linked story collection HebrewPunk (2007) contains stories of Jewish pulp fantasy.
He co-wrote dark fantasy novel The Tel Aviv Dossier (2009) with Nir Yaniv. The Bookman Histories series, combining literary and historical characters with steampunk elements, includes The Bookman (2010), Camera Obscura (2011), and The Great Game (2012).
Standalone novel Osama (2011) combines pulp adventure with a sophisticated look at the impact of terrorism. It won the 2012 World Fantasy Award, and was a finalist for the Campbell Memorial Award, British Science Fiction Award, and a Kitschie.
His latest novels are Martian Sands and The Violent Century.
Much of Tidhar’s best work is done at novella length, including An Occupation of Angels (2005), Cloud Permutations (2010), British Fantasy Award winner Gorel and the Pot-Bellied God (2011), and Jesus & the Eightfold Path (2011).
Tidhar advocates bringing international SF to a wider audience, and has edited The Apex Book of World SF (2009) and The Apex Book of World SF 2 (2012).
He is also editor-in-chief of the World SF Blog , and in 2011 was a finalist for a World Fantasy Award for his work there.
He also edited A Dick and Jane Primer for Adults (2008); wrote Michael Marshall Smith: The Annotated Bibliography (2004); wrote weird picture book Going to The Moon (2012, with artist Paul McCaffery); and scripted one-shot comic Adolf Hitler’s I Dream of Ants! (2012, with artist Neil Struthers).
Tidhar lives with his wife in London.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
July 13, 2022
This is a wonderfully "niche" anthology, for that handful of people interested both in Judaism and zombies. Only two of the stories are the kinds of zombie stories you might find in Best New Zombie Tales, though even those have a very particularly Jewish flavour to them. The rest more explicitly use the undead concept to explore philosophy and Jewish identity.
I found that most of this collection is way over my head, and many terms are used that I'm simply not familiar with. This was clearly not compiled with a gentile audience in mind. That doesn't mean that it isn't worth reading as a gentile, however - even when I don't feel like I really grasped a story, I still found something to enjoy in every single entry.
"Rise" by Rena Rossner
This story is essentially "12 Dancing Princesses," except that the princesses are yeshiva students, and their partners are the corpses of holy rebetzin. While they dance, the zombie partners teach the boys about theology and philosophy. The eroticism and physicality of the learning reminded me quite a bit of some mystic cults.
"The Scapegoat Factory" by Ofir Touche Gafla
The central joke of the story is that all things are temporary - even death. A group of scientists use this assumptions to bring a group of dead back to life as zombies. Only, these zombies can't simply return to their old lives, and they can't die either. At the same time, there's this whole other joke about a company called the "Scapegoat Factory" that supplies willing scapegoats for cold cases, to give the families a sense of closure. The story is very funny, but perhaps has a bit too much going on. The whole Scapegoat Factory bit could be written out entirely without affecting the story much (though, I suppose it would need a new title...).
"Like a Coin Entrusted in Faith" by Shimon Adaf
I think this one went a bit over my head. There are two stories: In one, a woman is chatting with an artificial intelligence when it "dies". Meanwhile, a midwife is delivering demon babies. These two stories are related through the letters that two characters write to each other. It's a bit odd, and I had a hard time separating what was reference and what was fiction.
"Ten for Sodom" by Daniel Polansky
The first real "zombie apocalypse" story in the collection, a lapsed Jew grapples with this faith as he faces the end of the world. While short and much more similar to the zombie stories I'm familiar with, this still offers an interesting and uniquely Jewish (albeit lapsed Jewish) perspective on the genre.
"The Friday People" by Sarah Lotz
The zombies are more ambiguous in this darkly amusing entry. The titular Friday People are the younger generation who meet briefly on their weekly visits to their older relatives - many doing so in the hopes of a future inheritance. Except that their relatives just won't die, no matter what.
Tractate Metim 28A by Benjamin Rosenbaum
A lot of this one went right over my head, but it was still extremely amusing. A group of rabbis argue over matters pertaining to the purity of the undead. I've seen similar types arguments on the internet, and they are just wonderful.
Wiseman's Terror Tales by Anna Tambour
A young man wants to design rockets, but seems destined to design bras instead. The zombies (again, somewhat ambiguous zombies, who seem far more explicitly metaphorical than they usually are) try to persuade him to choose a career. I enjoyed elements of this story, but something about it just didn't grip me. Perhaps because the imagery, that would have worked better as a subtle pattern in a novel-length story, was too condensed, too thrown together. The final reveal went a long way to endear me to the story as a whole, though!
Zayinim by Adam Roberts
The collection ends with another 'typical' zombie story - this time we have some alternate history where Hitler wins WWII and gives everyone except the Jews an immortality drug. When the immortals' minds degrade and they become zombies, the only true humans left are Jews. It's an interesting consent, and a novel spin on an old idea. It didn't hurt that the characters were fairly interesting as well.
I found that most of this collection is way over my head, and many terms are used that I'm simply not familiar with. This was clearly not compiled with a gentile audience in mind. That doesn't mean that it isn't worth reading as a gentile, however - even when I don't feel like I really grasped a story, I still found something to enjoy in every single entry.
"Rise" by Rena Rossner
This story is essentially "12 Dancing Princesses," except that the princesses are yeshiva students, and their partners are the corpses of holy rebetzin. While they dance, the zombie partners teach the boys about theology and philosophy. The eroticism and physicality of the learning reminded me quite a bit of some mystic cults.
"The Scapegoat Factory" by Ofir Touche Gafla
The central joke of the story is that all things are temporary - even death. A group of scientists use this assumptions to bring a group of dead back to life as zombies. Only, these zombies can't simply return to their old lives, and they can't die either. At the same time, there's this whole other joke about a company called the "Scapegoat Factory" that supplies willing scapegoats for cold cases, to give the families a sense of closure. The story is very funny, but perhaps has a bit too much going on. The whole Scapegoat Factory bit could be written out entirely without affecting the story much (though, I suppose it would need a new title...).
"Like a Coin Entrusted in Faith" by Shimon Adaf
I think this one went a bit over my head. There are two stories: In one, a woman is chatting with an artificial intelligence when it "dies". Meanwhile, a midwife is delivering demon babies. These two stories are related through the letters that two characters write to each other. It's a bit odd, and I had a hard time separating what was reference and what was fiction.
"Ten for Sodom" by Daniel Polansky
The first real "zombie apocalypse" story in the collection, a lapsed Jew grapples with this faith as he faces the end of the world. While short and much more similar to the zombie stories I'm familiar with, this still offers an interesting and uniquely Jewish (albeit lapsed Jewish) perspective on the genre.
"The Friday People" by Sarah Lotz
The zombies are more ambiguous in this darkly amusing entry. The titular Friday People are the younger generation who meet briefly on their weekly visits to their older relatives - many doing so in the hopes of a future inheritance. Except that their relatives just won't die, no matter what.
Tractate Metim 28A by Benjamin Rosenbaum
A lot of this one went right over my head, but it was still extremely amusing. A group of rabbis argue over matters pertaining to the purity of the undead. I've seen similar types arguments on the internet, and they are just wonderful.
Wiseman's Terror Tales by Anna Tambour
A young man wants to design rockets, but seems destined to design bras instead. The zombies (again, somewhat ambiguous zombies, who seem far more explicitly metaphorical than they usually are) try to persuade him to choose a career. I enjoyed elements of this story, but something about it just didn't grip me. Perhaps because the imagery, that would have worked better as a subtle pattern in a novel-length story, was too condensed, too thrown together. The final reveal went a long way to endear me to the story as a whole, though!
Zayinim by Adam Roberts
The collection ends with another 'typical' zombie story - this time we have some alternate history where Hitler wins WWII and gives everyone except the Jews an immortality drug. When the immortals' minds degrade and they become zombies, the only true humans left are Jews. It's an interesting consent, and a novel spin on an old idea. It didn't hurt that the characters were fairly interesting as well.
December 3, 2022
This publication is not really a book, more like a booklet. It includes eight stories relating in some way to Jews and zombies. The relation to Jews is sometimes more robust than others, and one needs to broaden the term "Zombies" quite a bit to include all stories in this small anthology.
Setting that gripe aside, this is a mixed bag of stories guaranteeing that a) almost everyone will find a good story in this mix and b) almost everyone will only like some of the stories in this mix. My average rating would be three stars out of five.
Setting that gripe aside, this is a mixed bag of stories guaranteeing that a) almost everyone will find a good story in this mix and b) almost everyone will only like some of the stories in this mix. My average rating would be three stars out of five.
June 26, 2015
“Tractate Metim 28A” by Benjamin Rosenbaum Not for me, thanks.
“The Friday People” by Sarah Lotz is great; it’s about a group of middle- aged men and women whose parents/ aunts and uncles live in a skyscraper in Cape Town and stop dying, but the next generation still has to continue to visit.
“Ten for Sodom” by Daniel Polansky Irreligious Ben is thinking of G-d, now that the apocalypse has come.
“Like a Coin Entrusted in Faith” by Shimon Adaf I’m not sure I get this one: there is a folktale about a midwife and a parallel story about a robot and software, via an e-mail exchange.
“The Scapegoat Factory” by Ofir Touche Gafla is a delight! Solvi, once a cabdriver, is looking for meaning in hisunlife ‘renewed existence.’ He’s gotten bored with sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, so he joins the Scapegoat Factory, and takes someone else’s prison sentence so the victim’s family gets closure.
“Rise” by Rena Rossner is a re-telling of the ‘12 Dancing Princesses,’ except here the princesses are yeshiva bocher in Safed, who fall asleep on the graves of holy rebetzin who dance with them and teach them.
“Wiseman’s Terror Tales” by Anna Tambour is about Irving Wiseman helping his mother make and design brassieres and some of his WWII experiences.
“Zayinim” by Adam Roberts is about Jonie and her family living on an island, perhaps. Hitler won World War II, and through science, generations ago, found an immortality, that is for everyone but Jews. So Jews must fight zombies, who they call ‘zayinim,’ the letter ‘z’ in Hebrew. Meanwhile, Jonie’s reading Nietszche, I think.
There were enough of these that I really liked, to keep me reading. I’m looking forward to reading Jews versus Aliens.
“The Friday People” by Sarah Lotz is great; it’s about a group of middle- aged men and women whose parents/ aunts and uncles live in a skyscraper in Cape Town and stop dying, but the next generation still has to continue to visit.
“Ten for Sodom” by Daniel Polansky Irreligious Ben is thinking of G-d, now that the apocalypse has come.
“Like a Coin Entrusted in Faith” by Shimon Adaf I’m not sure I get this one: there is a folktale about a midwife and a parallel story about a robot and software, via an e-mail exchange.
“The Scapegoat Factory” by Ofir Touche Gafla is a delight! Solvi, once a cabdriver, is looking for meaning in his
“Rise” by Rena Rossner is a re-telling of the ‘12 Dancing Princesses,’ except here the princesses are yeshiva bocher in Safed, who fall asleep on the graves of holy rebetzin who dance with them and teach them.
“Wiseman’s Terror Tales” by Anna Tambour is about Irving Wiseman helping his mother make and design brassieres and some of his WWII experiences.
“Zayinim” by Adam Roberts is about Jonie and her family living on an island, perhaps. Hitler won World War II, and through science, generations ago, found an immortality, that is for everyone but Jews. So Jews must fight zombies, who they call ‘zayinim,’ the letter ‘z’ in Hebrew. Meanwhile, Jonie’s reading Nietszche, I think.
There were enough of these that I really liked, to keep me reading. I’m looking forward to reading Jews versus Aliens.
August 3, 2021
I like this short story collection marginally better than its sister volume on extraterrestrials -- my individual ratings average to 3.25 out of five stars this time, an improvement on my previous 2.5 -- but it's still a decidedly mixed bag that doesn't live up to its full potential. Too many entries employ the walking dead as an artsy metaphor instead of a concrete issue for characters to deal with, and there's somehow not enough Jewishness throughout.
The best titles, such as Rena Rossner's "Rise" and Benjamin Rosenbaum's "Tractate Metim 28A" actually attempt to build a tale about reanimated corpses within an existing belief framework of (admittedly archaic) Judaism, or at least seem to adopt a Jewish perspective on the zombie apocalypse a la Adam Roberts's "Zayinim" or Daniel Polansky's "Ten for Sodom." But the weaker elements are disjointed and boring, and all too often reliant on stereotypes for a cheap laugh. Although the writers are all #ownvoices storytellers, they tend to use the premise of the anthology as a punchline rather than a prompt for truly engaging fiction from our particular cultural viewpoint.
As I said before, I'm glad these publications exist in the world, but I wish the editorial process had been stricter. In addition to an abundance of typos, it feels almost as though editors Lavie Tidhar and Rebecca Levene have published any submissions that answered their call, and that's disappointing for such a distinctive enterprise.
[Content warning for gun violence, suicide, and gore.]
Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter
The best titles, such as Rena Rossner's "Rise" and Benjamin Rosenbaum's "Tractate Metim 28A" actually attempt to build a tale about reanimated corpses within an existing belief framework of (admittedly archaic) Judaism, or at least seem to adopt a Jewish perspective on the zombie apocalypse a la Adam Roberts's "Zayinim" or Daniel Polansky's "Ten for Sodom." But the weaker elements are disjointed and boring, and all too often reliant on stereotypes for a cheap laugh. Although the writers are all #ownvoices storytellers, they tend to use the premise of the anthology as a punchline rather than a prompt for truly engaging fiction from our particular cultural viewpoint.
As I said before, I'm glad these publications exist in the world, but I wish the editorial process had been stricter. In addition to an abundance of typos, it feels almost as though editors Lavie Tidhar and Rebecca Levene have published any submissions that answered their call, and that's disappointing for such a distinctive enterprise.
[Content warning for gun violence, suicide, and gore.]
Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter
January 8, 2026
2.5
2 racconti molto belli
2 quasi inllegibili e incomprensibili
4 direi divertenti da leggere
Tutto sommato scorrevole, a parte i 2 racconti quasi inllegibili, di certo molto molto strano tutto. Gli zombie non sono mai, in nessun racconto, classici come il nostro immaginario, bene o male, ci impone. Ci sono zombie fantasma, zombie senzienti e chi più ne ha più ne metta.
Un racconto scomoda anche Hitler o meglio "Wolf Hitler"...
Sicuramente diverso dal solito, non lo consiglio a tutti ma sicuramente a chi ha la mente abbastanza aperta si.
Avrei voluto leggere anche "Ebrei vs alieni" ma mi sa non lo vedremo mai considerando che, credo, questo libro è fuori catalogo ed è stato pubblicato, se non sbaglio, ormai, 7 anni fa.
2 racconti molto belli
2 quasi inllegibili e incomprensibili
4 direi divertenti da leggere
Tutto sommato scorrevole, a parte i 2 racconti quasi inllegibili, di certo molto molto strano tutto. Gli zombie non sono mai, in nessun racconto, classici come il nostro immaginario, bene o male, ci impone. Ci sono zombie fantasma, zombie senzienti e chi più ne ha più ne metta.
Un racconto scomoda anche Hitler o meglio "Wolf Hitler"...
Sicuramente diverso dal solito, non lo consiglio a tutti ma sicuramente a chi ha la mente abbastanza aperta si.
Avrei voluto leggere anche "Ebrei vs alieni" ma mi sa non lo vedremo mai considerando che, credo, questo libro è fuori catalogo ed è stato pubblicato, se non sbaglio, ormai, 7 anni fa.
January 2, 2026
Very clever 21st century humor.
"Jews Versus Zombies" is a collection of eight (8) short stories which have been written by eight (8) different authors, and as the title implies, each of these stories involves notably awkward encounters between the undead encounter living humans who are Jewish.
You don't have to be Jewish to appreciate the humor in the stories which are included in this compilation. The 8 stories which are included in this collection are all very cleverly written so that everyone who reads them will be easily able to enjoy these stories, if you're looking for something that will make you laugh repeatedly, I thoroughly recommend this compilation.
"Jews Versus Zombies" is a collection of eight (8) short stories which have been written by eight (8) different authors, and as the title implies, each of these stories involves notably awkward encounters between the undead encounter living humans who are Jewish.
You don't have to be Jewish to appreciate the humor in the stories which are included in this compilation. The 8 stories which are included in this collection are all very cleverly written so that everyone who reads them will be easily able to enjoy these stories, if you're looking for something that will make you laugh repeatedly, I thoroughly recommend this compilation.
October 16, 2021
I rated this 1-2 stars
I really wanted to like this anthology, but overall there were to many stories i didn't really enjoy.
I liked the concept of this anthology but out of the stories I think I really enjoyed one , two were ok, two i barely got through because of the writing style and the rest just didn't have enough zombies for me.
I also found some of the stories you needed a previous understanding of Jewish culture, folklore and history to fully understand. This was fine for me but could be a hindrance for others.
I really wanted to like this anthology, but overall there were to many stories i didn't really enjoy.
I liked the concept of this anthology but out of the stories I think I really enjoyed one , two were ok, two i barely got through because of the writing style and the rest just didn't have enough zombies for me.
I also found some of the stories you needed a previous understanding of Jewish culture, folklore and history to fully understand. This was fine for me but could be a hindrance for others.
February 11, 2019
Uneven but very fun -- golems, Frankensteins, 12 dancing yeshiva bochers...
May 25, 2022
I am not a huge fan of the Undead so I was pleasantly surprised that none of these stories really actively freaked me out!
August 25, 2022
It was an interesting read. There were only 2 stories that I did not finish! Some of the stories I wanted to go on or be a bit longer.
June 17, 2023
I actually read the British omnibus with both books. The zombie stories were not my favorites, although some of them were interesting.
November 16, 2018
Mi aspettavo più zombie... Alcuni racconti belli, altri meno. Ed è difficile dare un giudizio complessivo proprio perché i racconti sono diversi e si passa dal bellissimo al bruttissimo. L'elemento ebraico è ben presente e raccontato, mentre quello più zombie/horror poco presente o non spiegato bene. Un peccato anche perché parliamo di Ebrei e Zombie ma i due non sono sullo stesso piano... Inoltre alcuni termini legati all'ebraismo, alle sue tradizioni e credenze non sono spiegati e quindi se non si ha una certa conoscenza di essi diventa un po' difficile apprezzare alcune storie e i loro particolari. Io ho delle conoscenze base perché l'ho studiato all'università, ma avevo delle lacune o non ricordavo bene alcune cose e questo mi ha fatto rendere conto della difficoltà che avrebbe avuto un lettore che ha una conoscenza molto ridotta sull'argomento. E' probabile che avrebbe abbandonato il libro o comunque apprezzato ancor meno di me. Le note avrebbero rovinato i racconti ma un glossario finale poteva facilitare e aiutare meglio la comprensione di alcune situazioni raccontate. Tirando le somme una raccolta piacevole ma mi aspettavo qualcosa di più.
La recensione completa di tutti i singoli racconti sul blog: https://bookmarksarereadersbestfriend...
La recensione completa di tutti i singoli racconti sul blog: https://bookmarksarereadersbestfriend...
March 28, 2021
"Ebrei contro Zombi" è un'antologia di otto racconti in cui protagonisti ebrei si scontrano con vari tipi di morti viventi: si va dallo spettro benigno delle fiabe allo zombi hollywoodiano da post-apocalisse, passando per il prodotto della (fanta)scienza e per il demone cabalistico. I racconti hanno tutti una prosa abbastanza avvincente, ma alcuni hanno una trama un po' debole e altri sono comprensibili solo a chi è esperto di cultura tradizionale ebraica e può cogliere allusioni dotte. Per chi, come me, è un lettore qualunque, si tratta "solo" una lettura dignitosa per riempire un pomeriggio.
January 17, 2016
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2584699.html
It struck me on reading the stories that both Jewish historical experience and zombie stories tend to converge on urban environments. There's an obvious part-way cross-over with the golem, which one or two of the writers explicitly invoke. The one that particularly grabbed me was the final story, Adam Roberts' "Zayinim", about a young girl fighting off zombies while thinking about philosophy.
It struck me on reading the stories that both Jewish historical experience and zombie stories tend to converge on urban environments. There's an obvious part-way cross-over with the golem, which one or two of the writers explicitly invoke. The one that particularly grabbed me was the final story, Adam Roberts' "Zayinim", about a young girl fighting off zombies while thinking about philosophy.
July 29, 2021
This anthology is fine. Not terrible! A little loose with the definition of the word zombie. If Benjamin Rosenbaum’s short story/hypothetical undead-focused talmud tractate was presented alone, I would have given it five stars; easily the standout story of this volume.
November 26, 2015
Interesting take on the zombie genre but don't go into this expecting guts and gore.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews