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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…
During the weeks that Eleazar spent in pious contemplation in old Asia, the people of Barcelona took pains to persecute the Jews. It was they, once again, who made it hard for Spanish merchants to…
Rabbi Ezekiel of Kozmir and his followers were great believers in the divine principle of joyousness.
Reb Ezekiel himself was a giant of a man, standing a full head above his Chasidic followers, and…
The Lodz merchant and community head, Abraham Hersh Ashkenazi, known as Abraham Hersh Danziger for his frequent trips to Danzig, sat over a Tractate Zebahim, brooding and tugging…
Inside the house they took their seats. Though it was lighter than a few evenings before, a bulb or two would have helped. Eli had to hold his briefcase towards the window for the last gleamings. He…
The city of N. is built in three rings. First ring: the marketplace at the very center. Second: surrounding the market, the great city proper with its many houses, streets, byways, back…
Thus I went to all the tsadikim and I heard what they say in secret, and I also took the letters that they or those who serve them sent to one another and they didn’t see, because by means of the…
The antiquarian who spends his time amid his old things may well have his moments of despair. He probably asks himself more than once: “What is the use of all these antiques, while…
You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea: You will show faithfulness to Jacob. . . .
—Micah 7:19–20
In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, while I was walking along the…
When I was still young, nineteen years of age, it entered my mind to fool the world (as was the practice of the “holy ones” in those days), and this was the scheme I adopted: I used to travel on…