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The Lost Shtetl: A Novel
The Lost Shtetl: A Novel
The Lost Shtetl: A Novel
Ebook586 pages7 hours

The Lost Shtetl: A Novel

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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A Polish village overlooked by Nazis remains hidden until a troubled local marriage launches them into the twenty-first century in this imaginative debut.

Spared by the Holocaust and the Cold War, the tiny Jewish shtetl of Kreskol existed in happy isolation, virtually untouched and unchanged for decades. But when a local couple disappears, the existence of Kreskol soon makes headlines nationwide, and the whole town comes crashing into the twenty-first century. Divided between those embracing change and those clinging to its old-world ways, the people of Kreskol will have to find a way to come together, or risk their village disappearing for good.

Winner, National Jewish Book Award

Winner, Jewish Fiction Award from the Association of Jewish Libraries
LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 13, 2020
ISBN9780062991140
Author

Max Gross

Max Gross is a former staff writer for the New York Post and the Forward and is currently the Editor in Chief of the Commercial Observer. He lives in New York City with his wife and son.

Read more from Max Gross

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Reviews for The Lost Shtetl

Rating: 3.6363635454545458 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

44 ratings3 reviews

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Reason Read: Jewish Book Club Dec 2022 read, ROOTI was happy to read this book this month because it had been on my shelf for awhile. It is a story of a shtetl that was lost in Poland and totally did know that there was a WWII. Their contact with the world disrupts their community but it also results in the world accusing them of faking this and eventually this lost shtetl wishes they had never been found. It's an easy read with exploration of the Yiddish Jews and how culture and contact with the world can come with serious concerns.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    interesting premise. Written like a Batsheva Singer, with Jewish phrases and lingo and style. It was a bit long.I found the ending very uncomfortable
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Do you have to be Jewish to love this book? No. You just have to be the type of reader who enjoys a bit of historical magical realism. In this tale, the tiny, insular Polish shtetl (Yiddish for "village") of Kreskol has been hidden in the deep woods, beyond modern viewing and imagination, surviving world wars and undiscovered even by Nazi troops when Poland was overrun. When a contentious married couple divorces (very rare) and then disappears, a baker's apprentice is recruited to venture into the outer world and find them. Yankel hitches a ride with gypsies, the only outsiders who travel through Kreskol, and is brought to Smolskie, the nearest small city. Here Yankel makes the startling discoveries of cars, trains, cellphones, televisions, internet, and planes, and lands in a psychiatric hospital where he finds sympathetic staff members who help him to make a gradual adjustment to the perils and pleasure of what for him is a true new world. We also follow the couple Yankel is seeking, Pesha and Ishmael, as they go their own separate and doomed ways. And back in Kreskol, everything changes when the whole of Poland and the entire world marvels at their secret existence. This is a delightful adventure story, filled with humor and pathos.Quote: "He saw in the story of the Holocaust a vision of the future that Kreskol narrowly avoided. He saw all the great advances of technology that had been honed and perfected in the service of mankind's most primitive and horrific instincts."

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The Lost Shtetl - Max Gross

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