The Tithe

David Schornstein

1864

[ . . . ] The sofer’s work is poorly compensated. There is an old proverb about how the soferim never grow wealthy in the land of Israel. I don’t know who gave birth to that pearl detached from the necklace of the world’s wisdom, but in the case of Reb Auscher, the proverb’s truth was amply confirmed: the sofer was not rich.

Nevertheless he was the…

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Creator Bio

David Schornstein

1826–1879

Born in an Alsatian village in 1826, the son of a cantor, David Schornstein trained for several years to be a teacher. He then moved to Paris, where he pursued a career in journalism and, at the same time, developed his literary interests as a playwright and novelist. His stories, centering on themes drawn from Jewish life, range from graphic accounts of suffering and persecution to nostalgic tales of traditional life in small towns. In the latter, the subjects are often idealized. “The Tithe” is one such story.

Related Guide

Folk Tales and Fiction, 1750–1880

The “return to history” of Jews in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and engagement between Jews and their majority cultures offered new models for imaginative writing beyond those within their ancestral traditions.

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