Lost World of Russia's Jews

In 1913, Abraham Rechtman journeyed through the Russian Pale of Settlement on a mission to record its Jewish folk traditions before they disappeared forever.The Lost World of Russia's Jewsis the first English translation of his extraordinary experiences, originally published in Yiddish, documenting a culture best known until now through romanticized works likeLife Is with PeopleandFiddler on the Roof. In the last years of the Russian Empire, Abraham Rechtman joined S. An-sky's Jewish Ethnographic Expedition to explore and document daily life in the centuries old Jewish communities of the Pale of Settlement. Rechtman described the key places where Jewish life and death were experienced and connected these sites to local folklore and customary practices. Among the many unique contributions of his memoir are riveting descriptions of traditional Jewish healers and exorcists-many of them women-and their methods and incantations. Rather than a nostalgic portrait of an imagined shtetl, Rechtman succeeded in producing an intimate account of Jewish life and death that is highly nuanced and richly detailed.The Lost World of Russia's Jewspowerfully illuminates traditionalJewish life in Eastern Europe on the eve of its transformation and, ultimately, destruction.