The list of those to whom I owe thanks for making this book possible is longer than usual.

My brother-in-law, Ira Wolfson, helped introduce me to the complexity of the Book of Job.

My colleague, Jeffrey Herf, of the History Department at the University of Maryland, College Park, first suggested that I compare Job with Primo Levi. It turned out to be an enormously fruitful suggestion, although I'm not quite sure what he will think of the result.

My departmental chair, Mark Lichbach, has supported and encouraged my work in ways big and small.

My colleague, Jim Glass, once again read the entire manuscript and once again helped me retrieve the key argument, which it is all too easy to lose in the details.

Matt Bowker, a former graduate student and now a professor in his own right, helped me teach an honor's seminar on affliction and taught me much of what I know about Camus.

Aryeh Botwinick, a colleague at Temple University, helped me with the biblical Hebrew, as well as encouraging me along the way. Sara Botwinick, his wife and a social worker for a Jewish social services agency, helped me understand the vulnerability of the aging survivor.

I owe a particular debt of gratitude not only to the Fortunoff Video Archives for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University Library, but also to the lead archivist there, Joanne Rudof.