In 1938, with the outbreak of violence that would come to be known as Kristallnacht, Risikoff wrote about keeping faith, and yet taking action in religious ways that would include worship, liturgy, and both concrete and internal responses of &lt;a href="Repentance%20in%20Judaism"&gt;teshuva/repentance&lt;/a&gt;. He wrote that Levites, members of the Levitical tribe—and especially Kohanim, the family dynasty of Jewish Priests within that tribe—must play a special role. In his writings, especially in his book, "HaKohanim vHaLeviim", "The Priests and the Levites", he stressed that members of these groups exist in the realm between history (below) and redemption (above), and were called upon to take a leading role in a call to prayer, repentance, and action that would help bring an end to suffering. He wrote, "Today, we also are living through a time of flood, Not of water, but of a bright fire, which burns and turns Jewish life into ruin. We are now drowning in a flood of blood...Through the "Kohanim" and "Levi'im" help will come to all Israel.