The Bizarre Worlds of Avram Davidson’s Science Fiction

Born in Yonkers in 1923, Avram Davidson embraced strict Jewish observance in his youth, served in World War II and then in the Israeli War of Independence, and briefly wrote for the American Orthodox magazine Jewish Life. He was also a prolific author of science fiction—some of which is peppered with learned and even obscure Jewish references—and earned much acclaim among enthusiasts of the genre, although he never had much success outside it. These Jewish motifs continued to appear in Davidson’s work even after his conversion in the 1960s to the Japanese religion Tenrikyo.