When Lev Raphael pub­lished the con­tro­ver­sial sto­ry col­lec­tion Danc­ing on Tisha B’Av, he broke new ground in the pub­lish­ing world. Nev­er before had an Amer­i­ca writer dealt, in one book, with the con­flicts between homo­sex­u­al­i­ty and tra­di­tion­al Judaism, linked the chill­ing mind dis­eases of anti-Semi­tism and homo­pho­bia, while also bear­ing wit­ness not only to the lega­cy of Holo­caust sur­vivors but the suf­fer­ing and con­flicts of their chil­dren. In a book that won him inter­na­tion­al acclaim, Raphael opened the door to a new kind of Amer­i­can Jew­ish fiction.