The destruction of Trochenbrod, the only exclusively Jewish town outside of Israel, is a mostly overlooked Holocaust tragedy. This book pulls together a collection of extraordinary poems, essays, and letters by Yisrael Beider, a son of Trochenbrod and a descendant of generations of rabbis tracing back to the MAHARAL. Beider perished in the Holocaust, but these writings survived to become rare documents to emerge from Trochenbrod. Although Beider published portions of his work in prominent Hebrew and Yiddish papers, most of his work remains unknown. This translation assembled the entire surviving collection to shed light on Beider's literary and historical work, and to provide an eyewitness account of life in Trochenbrod and western Ukraine between the two world wars.
By:
Yisrael Beider
Translated by:
Gabriel Laufer
Imprint: Cherry Orchard Books
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 203mm,
Width: 127mm,
Spine: 13mm
Weight: 249g
ISBN: 9798887196626
Pages: 244
Publication Date: 16 July 2025
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
General/trade
,
Undergraduate
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Yisrael Beider and His Literary Work Trochenbrod, the Town That Was Acknowledgements Notes on the Text 1. POEMS Nature A Winter Poem From the Valley Cloudlets Winter in the Countryside On the Farm Frost Between Trickles A Note from the Countryside Alone Alien [country] On the Way to the Village In the Village The Old Doc Beneath the Crescent Moon Spring Has Run Away . . . The Land of Israel On the Edge Who Is the Hebrew! Excursion in the Homeland Lamentations “Der Pastukh”—The Shepherd Family Father’s Home Work Sarah is Departing Motherly Bliss The Photograph To Ya’akov You are Bar Mitzvah . . . Oppression When the Eighth Candle Dies Out The Orphan From the Abyss On the Water In a Foreign Land At the Ice Rink The Fair Old Age Old Age At My Setting Sun Miscellaneous Untitled The Jealousy Is Eating Me Untitled If for Each Failure of Mine Ashmedai 2. ESSAYS Jerusalem The Modest One Today Is Tisha’a be-Av The Abbreviator, of Blessed Memory (A Khasidic Story) Rambam and His Gentile Adversary (A Folk Legend) A Drop in the Sea (From the Recent Past) Without Bialik A Jewish Heart . . . Memories from the Recent Past 3. LETTERS Letter to His Brother Hayim Letter to Hayim Letter to His Brother Hayim or Hagai Letter to Hayim Letter to an Unnamed Friend in Międzyrzecz Letter to His Brother Shimon Letter to His Brothers Zalman and Naftali [on the Death of Shimon] Eulogy Letter to His Mother References Appendix: Yisrael Beider’s Family Tree, June 28, 2012
Gabriel Laufer , the son of Holocaust survivors, native of Israel, lives in Charlottesville, VA. He earned a Ph.D. in Engineering from Princeton University and served as a professor at the Technion in Israel and at the University of Virginia until his retirement. He is the author of A Survivor's Duty, co-translator ofNotes from the Valley of Slaughter by Aharon Pick.
Reviews for A Voice from The Lost Town of Trochenbrod: A Translation of Poems, Essays and Letters by Yisrael Beider
“Gabriel Laufer’s translation not only brings to life for the English reader the rich language and extraordinary variety of Yisrael Beider’s Hebrew writings, but also captures something of his spirit, world, and worldview. Only some of Beider’s brilliant work has miraculously survived, but even so, and even through the veil of translation, one can appreciate his greatness. One is in awe of the dedication and generosity of spirit that Laufer invested in the sacred task of translating Beider’s texts. The prose that Laufer reconstructed is engaging and preserves the deliberately archaic and folksy style of the Hassidic tales, while the straightforward translations from poetry humbly transmit the sensitive heart and the keen eye that produced them. The texts are further illuminated by careful footnotes that document publication history, sources, and terminology for each text. Thanks to Laufer’s talents and to Academic Studies Press, this extraordinary material will finally be accessible to all. As a Professor of Modern Hebrew Literature, I can attest that this volume is invaluable for teaching Jewish twentieth-century writings and the Holocaust. One hopes it will motivate further study and translations of Beider’s corpus.” — Nili Gold, Professor of Modern Hebrew Literature at the University of Pennsylvania “This book offers a beautiful glimpse into the rich legacy of East European Jewish culture–a world that would be almost inaccessible today, if it was not for the work of translators, like Cassel, Cassedy, and Laufer. Beider's poetry, essays, and letters encompass a wide array of topics: the natural world, anti-Jewish violence, as well as the daily emotional texture of parenting and family life. I thank these translators for putting more of us in touch with Beider's soulful lens on Jewish life.” — Hannah Pollin Galay, Associate Professor of Yiddish and Holocaust Studies, Tel Aviv University
