The Family Moskat

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 strata of this complex society were populated by powerfully individual personalities - mystic philosophers and tough Zionists, tradition-bound rabbis and iconoclastic painters - within a community that 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 World War II.