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Jewish Gentle and Other Stories of Gay-Jewish Living

These 24 stories explore various aspects of gay-Jewish life. Some characters wrestle with religion, others with their place in tradition and community. Yet for others, Jewish identity is not at issue in the pursuit of happiness, love, and inner peace; rather, Jewishness is a cornerstone given, a foundational lens through which they see and examine the world and self.

Readers' reactions:

"[T]he most powerful collection of short stories about gay Jews ...[in] more than 20 years." Wayne Hoffman, Jewish Book Council's Jewish Book World.

"... tender, provocative, thoughtful, and engaging..." Paul Landerman for Edge.

"Jaffe’s gift with language, with voice, with temporality, with suspense, with humor, with character, with mood made each of his tales utterly engaging. Never has the familiar felt as fresh as it does in Jaffe’s stories....Jaffe has a particular gift for capturing the complicated emotional currents swirling around coming out....By telling such well-spun tales with such well-crafted characters, Jaffe has left me wanting more . . . but in the best way." Kent Brintnall for Out in Print.

"[A] fascinating, diverse and highly imaginative work of fiction... It’s most definitely a good read." Simone Ellin, Baltimore Jewish Times.

From the Introduction by Andrew Ramer:

"We know the territory that Jaffe writes in—lush, stark, unexpected, a Jordan flowing through it with Real on one bank and Dream on the other. Jaffe is not afraid to write about violence, or blasphemy, sometimes comically and sometimes horrifically…. Where fractured novel and story collection are Velcroed to the music he composes, his Torah of the moment, the stories of our gay queer Jewish lives, seen and reseen, heard and reheard, with a lush orchestra of lived experience playing in the background. A collection of stories that could be a novel, the sections of a novel shuffled like a deck of cards. A lush Jewish gamelan for queer ears, queer hearts, queer minds. And otherwise.”