Englander's stories all focus on Orthodox Jewish characters who struggle to either isolate themselves from or fit into secular society. The stories in For the Relief of Unbearable Urges cover the entire gamut of Jewish experience from the horror of Nazi camps to the terror of bombs which still explode in downtown Jerusalem. In between these extremes, Englander situates the small struggles to survive in a world that views Jews with suspicion.

Because Jews have endured the struggles described by Englander for thousands of years, the social concerns he addresses are somewhat timeless. Though his first two stories relate events set in two particular eras of genocide, one can imaginatively recreate the violence against Jews in almost any era. Stories such as "Reb Kringle," however, reveal that Jewish people do not only suffer during times of ethnic cleansing. Though funny, many of Englander's stories endeavor to...