Published by The Toby Press. 2006.

Available online via amazon.com

Author’s Note

“History is the nightmare from which I try to awaken.” – James Joyce

Writing Brothers was a singular experience. I wrote ferociously. Everywhere I went: on city busses, on the subway, in waiting rooms, in line at the bank, at my office desk, or wrenched suddenly from sleep in the middle of the night. Sometimes, when we visited friends, I absented myself from the company, found a quiet corner and jotted down what had come to me. Always, I kept on my person pen and blank sheets of typing-paper, folded neatly in three, in whose columns I would continue the book. So forceful the surge of my inspiration, so emphatic the connection to my subconscious, so profound my immersion in the lives of the characters, so hypnotic the pull of my story that I had a hard time controlling the geyser-like flow of the manuscript. I had touched the core of an inner volcano.

When I began to write Brothers, I had no idea where it was going to take me. Somewhere along the way I had a glimpse of the end, without knowing how I would get there. But my subconscious kept its bargain, to wit, if I truly trusted it and followed its dictates without question and without hesitation. I would find the solution to every puzzle my characters posed. And thus, long after completing the book, I discovered that in writing about one of the most significant myths in Western culture, I had burrowed into, exhumed and found harrowing expression for the intimate, unsettling and painful relationship between myself and my very own younger sibling.

Few personal shocks in my life were greater than that discovery. The germ for Brothers is to be found in my childhood, in the bitterness of my Jewish raising in an America whose anti-Semitic acid burned virulently in my consciousness. As a Jewish boy growing up in a Christian society, which apparently had difficulty in coming to terms with itself, I was constantly mocked, humiliated and physically beaten for being Jewish, for being a ‘Christ-killer’. A ghoulish accusation which I found at once terrifying and absurd. The instability and insecurity of my family-life were reinforced and intensified by the intolerance and brutality of the gentile world around me.

In this light, writing Brothers was a catharsis for me. As a reader said, the book didn’t stir him, it transformed him. I agree, it transformed the author as well.

Brothers takes place in Judea Capta at the time of Jesus and Judas, Pilate and Herod, the time when Rome clashed head-on with Jerusalem, twisting the compass of Western civilization for the next two thousand years. The novel is set in what Henry Miller calls, ‘probably the greatest period in human history’. But the characters who populate Brothers live, as do the men and women of today, confronting the selfsame moral and psychological problems and dilemmas. Despite its glittering scientific and technological advances, humanity remains as pitilessly and pitifully entangled in and confounded by the age-old dangers, delusions and dementias seemingly inherent in its very nature; ‘modern’ society scrapes and muddles along, but barely so. Now, as then, the fate of our species, gorged with weaponry, bursting with bellicosity and drunk with the lust for power hangs by a thread.

As became evident only after I’d finished Brothers, I wrote the book to assert that absolute unredeemable evil exists in our world, to shatter the mummy-case of myth that stifles, suffocates and stunts us, to demonstrate that morality is a glue that scarcely holds civilization together, to maintain that betrayal of the self inexorably leads to the betrayal of others and to reclaim with burning pride the kinship of my brother, Jesus Christ of Bethlehem and Nazareth, unequivocally, irreversibly and irrefutably for the Jewish people. For when all is said and done, it is from the ancient soil of this land of Israel that Jesus sprang into the sky. And then, of course, I wrote the book out of my undeniable and irresistible need. I wrote it because I had to.

Chayym Zeldis, Raanana, Israel. 2006.

Powerful. He writes about Jesus, and it’s enough to make your hair stand on end if you’re a Christian… (Zeldis’) writing has a magical quality. The cruelty and the tenderness or compassion match beautifully… (BROTHERS) is a truly moving document of probably the greatest period in history.” Henry Miller, author of The Tropic of Cancer, The Tropic of Capricorn etc.

“…Beautiful and elegant…Luxuriate in the pleasures of old-fashioned, brilliant narrative.”  ---Doris Grumach, Los Angeles Times.

“…The author has a profound grasp of his materials…(He) has all of us choking on history and myth…Compelling, bitter and utterly believable…” Jerome Charyn, New York Times.

“…Chayym Zeldis has managed to create one of the literary arch villains of all time, a fascinating, scheming individual who escorted me through the often hideous halls of Herod without even momentarily easing the pressure…of his knife in my back.” Ernest K. Gann, author of God Is My Co-Pilot etc.

”Brave and monumental…Zeldis’ notion of Christ’s origin out of bottomless evil can chill your bones…The narrator (Jesus’ brother) is Manson and Speck, Oswald and Bremer, one with the heart-blasted murderers and assassins of the world. He evolves to psychopathic manipulation, to pansexuality, to sadomasochism and murder; he loves no man but himself; he is an essential portrait of corruption, the embodiment of
 the death instinct in us all.” Richard Rhodes, Chicago Tribune.

“…It moved me deeply…” Leslie Fiedler, Samuel Clemens Professor University at Buffalo.

“…Scholem Asch…Nikos Kazantzakis…Chayym Zeldis…Robert Graves…Reynolds Price: I highly recommend all of these writers’ novels to any Christian reader with an open mind, i. e. one who does not confuse fantasy with blasphemy.” Karen Mercedes.

“…Having read (BROTHERS), I find I am a different person from the one who started it. This is not a book that stirs the reader, it transforms him…Those who digest it will gain  a sense of indescribable freedom—freedom from theological platitudes and psychological defenses portraying cruelty as an aberration that can be overcome by ritual condemnations and pious recollection of past deeds…(BROTHERS) is a masterpiece that will undoubtedly live on indefinitely…” Prof. Dennis J. Snower, University of London.

“…a work of genius…(Zeldis) is a great artist…” Emanuel Rackman, Chancellor Bar-Ilan University.

“…a wonderful book…” Sander L. Gilman, Henry R. Luce Professor of the Liberal Arts in Human Biology, University of Chicago, author of Jewish Self-Hatred.

”…(Brothers) depicts in almost hallucinatory colors the lawlessness of religion captive to base instincts…” Reform Judaism.

“…extraordinary…(Zeldis’) novel…by opening the door to the contemplation of what is ‘real’ in religion…benefits it.” Lee Ballentine, editor, UR*VOX .

“…brutalizes our moral sensibilities almost to the numbing point…” Prof. Sanford Pinsker, Ontario Review