YOU SHOULD KNOW ...

Josh Weiss
“Don’t feel like you have to
water down your Judaism
for the audience.”
Courtesy of Josh Weiss
JOSH WEISS
Courtesy of Grand Central Publishing
HEATHER M. ROSS | STAFF WRITER
A t 27-years-old, Josh Weiss has done something many people
aspire to but never quite manage: He published his first book,
“Beat the Devils,” on March 22 via Grand Central Publishing.

“Beat the Devils” is a crime thriller set in an alternate historic
reality version of the United States in 1958. The book deals with the
paranoia during the Red Scare and antisemitic sentiments, which ran
high at the time.

Weiss has advice to share with other Jewish authors.

“Don’t feel like you have to water down your Judaism for the audi-
ence,” he said.

Weiss was born in Philadelphia but
moved to Cherry Hill, New Jersey,
grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home
and attended Politz Day School. He
was bar mitzvahed at Sons of Israel
in Cherry Hill. For high school, he
attended Kohelet Yeshiva High School
in Merion and now attends synagogue
at Mekor Habracha in Center City.

Weiss started writing his book during
his fourth year at Drexel University,
where he studied communications with
a focus on public relations.

Weiss has always had a love for read-
ing and writing, but he said he was
inspired to write his book by “The
Yiddish Policemen’s Union” by Michael
Chabon, “The Manchurian Candidate”
by Richard Condon and, most impor-
tantly, by stories told to him as a young
boy by his father about his grandfather,
Elias Weiss, who was a Holocaust sur-
vivor. Elias Weiss, who was born Elias
Mendolovich, survived three concen-
tration camps, one being Auschwitz,
and a late-war death march. In addi-
tion to losing his whole family, save
one cousin, Elias Weiss suffered from
epilepsy after being hit on the head
by the butt of a German guard’s rifle;
that affected him for the rest of his life.

Due to the resulting seizures, he was
discharged from the U.S. Army and
had his driver’s license revoked after a
severe car accident.

“I can’t speak for his mental health
prior to the outbreak of World War II,
but there is no doubt that the Holocaust
warped him in ways my family and I will
never truly understand,” Josh Weiss said.

Weiss wrote “Beat the Devils” in part
to try to gain a better understanding
of what happened to make his grand-
father so detached. The book’s main
character, Morris Epharim Baker, is
also a Holocaust survivor who suffers
from blackouts due to a similar inci-
dent and faces resulting challenges.

Weiss also had advice about the pub-
lishing process.

“The process was slow, and you get a
lot of rejection,” he said. “Don’t give up,
don’t shy away from it.”
“Beat the Devils” can be found in
Barnes & Noble, Target, other book-
stores, online and even as an audiobook.

A sequel to “Beat the Devils” is
already written, and Weiss hopes to
have it out on store shelves next year. JE
hross@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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