Description
Book SynopsisSince World War II, the sub-Carpathian Mountain region once known as Maramarosh has remained “Judenrein” (free of Jews). Jewish Maramarosh lives on, however, through the contributions to scholarship and humanity of Maramarosh Holocaust survivors and their progeny, including Nobel laureate Elie Weisel and the Talmud scholar Professor David Halivni-Weiss. Maramarosh
Shoah survivor and Talmud scholar Professor Elieser Slomovic here provides access to a collection of
response literature, most of it out of print and previously available only or primarily in Yiddish. Through personal queries about how to live
Torah-instructed lives and rabbinic responses, the reader is invited to enter the world of Jewish Maramarosh, where Hasidism flourished and rabbinic scholarship reflected human nobility manifested through the pragmatics of poverty and the dynamics of living closely with nature. Professor Slomovic, recognising the fluidity and balance over time provided by Talmudic thought as exemplified through rabbinic teaching, invites the reader to join the discourse on the everyday life of everyday people.
Trade ReviewâIn addition to being a scholarly work, this book is also a personal memoir. Known and little-known events fill its pages. . . . Essays, childhood memories from the ghetto and the camps, fascinating response problems both timeless and new, deeply moving meditations on faith and suffering, despair and hope, reflections and descriptions: they are all in this remarkable book, which can be described as a rewarding quest for both intellectual enrichment and nostalgic remembering. I recommend it to readers everywhere: it is a true gift. And a blessing too.â âElie Wiesel, University Professor, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Boston University|âHe [Dr. Slomovic] knew that a proper history of Maramarosh Jewry from its conception was an almost impossible task. . . . He brought to it his knowledge of responsa literature and his erudition in the historical literature connected with Maramarosh. . . He is a cautious observer, working painstakingly to draw out the truth. You could almost feel his personality intruding into his research, soft, careful, and meticulous. One gets the feeling that he is treading on holy ground, never forgetting whom his is describing. Writing this history was not for him a secular activity, competing with studying Torah, but a holy endeavor that deserved religious attention. He embodied a rare combination of awe and thoroughness, distance and closeness, pain and satisfaction. This is a scholarly and a religious book combined.â âDavid Halivni, Professor (emeritus) of Classical Jewish Civilization, Columbia University
