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In the province of Mollive, there is an old woman who is known for her shtetl wisdom, her old sayings, and her folktales. I met her quite by chance. Her…
“Miss Duncan? The dancer? What is that—ballet?” No, it is not ballet. Missing here are the two predominant elements that make up modern ballet: there is neither dance technique nor women wearing…
His aged back bent under the burden of six decades, forever trying to crumple his weary countenance into furrows long since smoothed away, what possible kind of Aladdin is our old mutual…
The train pulls up to the platform, steaming and boiling like a samovar.
Lazar is standing on the platform—short, glowing, joyful—waving his dirty handkerchief at the cars.
The train is on its way to…
The heder was in the basement. It was a dark, damp room with a low ceiling. There were two windows on the ground level. In the middle of the room, there was a long wooden table covered with books, two…
. . . An empty street. An unfamiliar shack. A tightly shut gate. And hanging over the gate, over the dead street, over us all—a Cossack cap with a raspberry-colored band. A trail of smoke from an…
[ . . . ] And the Lieutenant-Captain was seriously tired of other people’s passports, of never-ending family names, from Ivanov to Chavchavadze, and of registration.
The barrister has been…
During the nineteenth century the lives of Jews in Russia underwent enormous changes. In pre-reform times most Jews lived in villages and small towns. Most were engaged in trade and…
On this ancient trunk
With hanging branches, gray flax
I’m a young branch.
To grow: my sole passion.
Green shoot
rising
high
to the bright,
I’ll bring red blossoms
to argue:
World, I’m right!
From…
Pass on, pass on, you lonely grandfathers,
With frightened beards covered with snow,
In the last sorrow, in the final grief
You’re still here, the final witnesses.
Pass on, pass on, you lonely…