Alan Fleishman

Goliath's Head Alan Fleishman

GOLIATH'S HEAD tells the story of a search for courage and hope in the midst of crushing oppression. Avi Schneider is a Jewish boy growing up in Russia on the eve of early-twentieth-century revolution. He is only nine years old when he first meets his own personal devil, Viktor Askinov, a brutal youngster who relishes tormenting Jews. In the years that follow, Avi is the object of his tormentor's obsession. The story reaches a climax fourteen years later in 1905 when the Tsar instigates riots - pogroms - against the poor, teeming Jewish villages. Now a husband and father, Avi takes to the barricades to defend his village from the mob coming to kill the men, rape the women, and burn his village to the ground. Armed, he again faces Viktor Askinov, who is leading the mob. But he has been warned that if he kills Viktor Askinov, he puts his beautiful young wife Sara, and newborn son Itzhak, in deadly peril. Avi must decide this night what he stands for. Is it survival at any cost, for himself and those he loves? Or is it righteous vengeance for his people?