SOURCE: Elman, Richard M. “Parable of Faith.” New Republic 151, no. 10 (15 September 1964): 32, 34.

In the following review, Elman praises The Town beyond the Wall, calling it “an existential parable of faith.”

Evil is human; weakness is human; indifference is not.

—Elie Wiesel

Even in his literary expression the Jew remains cosmopolitan. Despite the creation of a Jewish state, the reinvigoration of the Hebrew language, writers continue to express themselves as Jews in the various tongues of the Diaspora; and their imaginations seem forever fixed on a Europe that is in ashes. In a recent Commentary, Isaac Bashevis Singer explained: “Demons symbolize the world for me, and by that I mean human beings and human behavior.” Surely it is not accidental that this surviving Yiddish master should now be achieving world-wide recognition (including a West German nomination for the Prix Formentor) at a time when the conscience of the western world...