The van­ished way of life of East­ern Euro­pean Jews in the ear­ly part of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry is the sub­ject of this extra­or­di­nary nov­el. All the stra­ta of this com­plex soci­ety were pop­u­lat­ed by pow­er­ful­ly indi­vid­ual per­son­al­i­ties, and the whole com­mu­ni­ty pul­sat­ed with life and vital­i­ty. The affairs of the patri­ar­chal Meshu­lam Moskat and the unworld­ly Asa Hes­hel Ban­net pro­vide the cen­ter of the book, but its real focus is the civ­i­liza­tion that was destroyed for­ev­er in the gas cham­bers of the Sec­ond World War.

An epic nov­el about the East­ern Euro­pean Jews from the turn of the cen­tu­ry to the Ger­man inva­sion of Poland.