The Shochet (Vol. 2)

<p><b>A fitting conclusion to a well-researched and meticulously edited memoir translation. - <i>Kirkus Reviews</i></b></p><p><b><br></b></p><p><b>“You have to read this book… It's not like anything you read before.” — <i>Tablet Magazine</i></b></p><p><br></p><p>Set in Ukraine Crimea and Israel this unique two-volume autobiography offers a fascinating detailed picture of life in Tsarist Russia and Israel during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Goldenshteyn (1848-1930) a traditional Jew who was orphaned as a young boy and became a shochet (kosher slaughterer) as a young man is a master storyteller. Folksy funny streetwise and self-confident he is a keen observer of his surroundings. His accounts are vivid and readable sometimes stunning in their intensity. </p><p>The memoir is brimming with information. Goldenshteyn’s adventures shed light on communal life persecution family relationships religious practices and beliefs social classes local politics interactions between Jews and other religious communities epidemics poverty competition for resources migration war technology modernity and secularization. In chronicling his own life Goldenshteyn inadvertently tells a bigger story—the story of how a small oppressed people among other minority groups struggled for survival in the massive Russian Empire and in the Land of Israel.</p><p>Volume two begins in 1873 when Goldenshteyn obtains his first position as a shochet in Slobodze and it follows him to the Crimea where he endures 34 years  of vicissitudes. In 1913 he fulfills a dream of immigrating to the Land of Israel hoping to find tranquility in his old age. Instead he is met with the turbulence of the First World War as battles rage between the retreating Ottoman Turks and the advancing British forces.</p><p><br></p><p>Informed by research in Ukrainian Israeli and American archives and personal interviews with the few surviving individuals who knew Goldenshteyn personally <i>The Shochet</i> is a magnificent new contribution to Jewish and Eastern European history.</p>