Adas Library Reviews

The Lost Shtetl

Life in Yiddish-speaking Kreskol has remained unchanged for as long as anyone there can remember. Surrounded by a deep forest and far from Polish urban centers, the village is a self-contained, traditional Jewish world. But when a young woman named Pesha runs away and is pursued by her angry former husband Ishmael, the rabbi is sufficiently concerned to send a third Kreskolite, a young baker’s apprentice named Yankel, to search for Pesha and alert public authorities about the potentially dangerous Ishmael. A crazy cascade of events ensues, landing Yankel in the psychiatric ward of a city hospital. There, incredulous doctors probe his ignorance of modern technology and history – cars, TV, phones, indoor plumbing, and World Wars I and II. They gently break awful news to a disbelieving Yankel. He learns that Kreskol’s Jews are nearly the only Jews left in Poland; the others were wiped out by the Holocaust that the isolated Kreskol miraculously escaped.

Yankel makes a dramatic return to Kreskol, accompanied by government officials eager to welcome the lost shtetl into 21st century Poland. The villagers are dumbfounded by announcements of plans for postal service and electricity. Tourists arrive in busloads, fueling an economic boom, until an accusation that the villagers are faking their remarkable lost-in-history narrative puts Kreskol’s new prosperity at risk. Meanwhile, Yankel moves to Warsaw, and the missing Pesha and Ishmael unexpectedly resurface. The lives of these three characters intertwine in peril-filled adventures of captivity, escape, arson, and death.