Therefore, Choose Life. Format: Paperback

An annotated translation of the extraordinary autobiography of Dr. Moisey Wolf (1922-2007), “Therefore, Choose Life...” is an important addition to the literature of Jewish experience and deepens our understanding of the human condition in the twentieth century.

Wolf describes his Jewish childhood and youth in pre-war Poland, his escape from the Holocaust and subsequent medical service in the Soviet Army during World War II and the following decade, his distinguished career in psychiatry in post-Stalinist Soviet Russia, and his final years in Portland, Oregon, after his departure from the Soviet Union in 1992.

Wolf’s narrative skill and evocative personal insights, combined with Judson Rosengrant’s judicious editing and annotation and elegant translation, provide the reader with direct access to a world that has seemingly ceased to exist, yet continues to resonate and inform our own lives in powerful ways.

“Therefore, Choose Life…” will appeal to readers interested in the history of the East-European twentieth century, pre-Holocaust Jewish family life in Poland, and in the survival of a man of deep religious faith and cultivation in the face of the catastrophes and vicissitudes of his time and place.

Judson Rosengrant has translated and edited a wide variety of Russian literature and historiography, including major works by Leo Tolstoy, Yury Olesha, Lydia Ginzburg, and Edvard Radzinsky. He received the PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Stanford University and has taught Russian language, literature, and culture at the University of Southern California, Indiana University, and Reed College, and, as a two-time Fulbright Senior Scholar, at St. Petersburg State University in Russia. He lives in Portland, Oregon.