A Review of Avia Tadmor’s Song in Tammuz by Alison Lake
Published Oct. 31, 2026
“This collection by Avia Tadmor is elegiac and complex, holding a multitude of layers in the varied poems.
Fully eleven out of the thirty-two poems center around the biblical Ruth, a non-Jew who married into the clans only to be left widowed and alone, but for her mother-in-law Naomi, as all the men of the family perished for an unknown reason. Even though she was not one of them, Ruth stayed with Naomi and left the city of Moab, a town in Jordan east of the Dead Sea that had been her only home. Her act of love and selflessness in staying with the older women led her to be praised by the Jews and honored by their god. She is the great-grandmother of the famous King David. […]
None of the poems in this collection are easy, easy to read, easy to comprehend, or easy to forget.” — Alison Lake
