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In every village in the region, in every farmhouse you’d meet them, the Boyars. The first Boyar, family legend had it, had settled in the Polesian forests many generations ago. His name had been Ezra…
Anyone familiar with our Russian Poland knows what Jews mean by a small shtetl, a little town.
A small shtetl has a few small cabins, and a fair every other Sunday. The Jews deal in liquor, grain…
The [bram]ble sent a message to the pomegranate as follows: “Dear Pomegranate, what good are all [your] thorns [to him who tou]ches your [fru]it?” The [pome] granate replied to the bramble, “You are…
Great men were once able to perform great miracles.
When the ghetto of Prague was under attack and marauders wanted to rape the women, roast the children, and murder everyone, when it seemed that all…
[ . . . ] [A]n Ashkenazic sage came to Ṣanʿāʾ in the time of Sar Shalom al-ʿIrāqī (d. 1780) . . . and stayed at his house and ate at his table. Fearing for the Ashkenazi’s life, Sar Shalom told him…
The morning of the third day, Tsiporah tried to distract Noémi.
“Have you read this article?” she asked, handing her Maariv.
Noémi finished her nth cigarette, then placed the butt on the already…
A peasant was transporting a large cart of hay. He had to pass through a low gateway, but the cart couldn’t pass under it. People advised the peasant to wear glasses with magnifying lenses, so that…
Of all festivities celebrated among the Jews in southern Russia, the wedding ceremony has suffered the greatest loss of characteristic elements of folk tradition. Even among the poorest, weddings are…
It was a bright and frosty winter night, moon and stars in the sky, snow, bedded snow, in the fields, and no sound from the paths, no horse and sleigh, no bell from the way, just field and peace…
Dedicated to my sister and friend Sarah Rappoport
A people’s poetry depicts, vividly and in clear relief, the hidden inner world of national life, to which we are admitted neither by the pen of the…