After accidentally killing a Polish peasant, Itzik Leiber flees from Zokof, his native shtetl. Protected by the ghost of the childless Freidl Alterman, whom Itzik awakens while hiding in the cemetery, Itzik heads to the United States. Years later Itzik’s secular son Nathan travels to Poland where the ever-watchful Freidl guides him to Zokof and Raphael, the shtetl’s only remaining Jew after World War II. When Nathan fails to fulfill Freidl’s hopes, the responsibility to nurture a Jewish soul falls to Nathan’s daughter, Ellen, who is removed from the life that Itzik once knew. Freidl’s final chance to redeem Itzik’s soul and her own arrives when Ellen gets a job choreographing for a Polish dance troupe. But can a Jewish soul repressed for two generations truly ignite?
Rosenbaum’s prose is awkward in its attempts to lend a Yiddish ring to her dialogue. In a cast of one dimensional characters, Freidl alone rises above type, coalescing into a vivid individual. Rosenbaum does, however, tackle an important issue in this debut novel, exploring the case of the child whose limited contact with the foundations of Judaism precludes his or her ability to find the richness of Jewish culture and to relate Judaism to contemporary life. With the rise of a generation whose contact with the old world is likely to be limited, A Day of Small Beginnings casts a wary eye ahead. Will the Jews of the future, at the very least, know how to ask?
