Tomozhenna Street

Tomozhenna Street is the story of a Jewish townlet in last bloom before its end, its people and events, as seen through the eyes of a growing boy. Among the characters are lame Yankele, who proclaims the wonders of the revolution to come; Reb Shuv, who wraps himself in a shroud to hasten the coming of the Messiah; Kuke, the whore, who walks down the street with the dying Nyuma on her arm, while they read aloud from Marx’s Das Kapital; Arale the peacemaker, always on the verge of a great invention; and among all these a dreamy woman gazing at the valley of the River Bug from between her window curtains, transforming it in her imagination into a great sea bearing the flagship of the redeemer.The novel is composed of a series of loosely-linked episodes. To the young narrator some of the local goings-on are fearful and mysterious – such as the dark attic where Father stores his wooden puppets, or the priest’s sinister estate which defines the boundary of Jewish life in the town.