Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in Biography & Memoir
Episode: Pinkhes-Dov Goldenshteyn, "The Shochet: A Memoir of Jewish Life in Ukraine and Crimea" (Academic Studies Press, 2023)
Description: Today we are going to explore a fascinating volume of the Yiddish library, the autobiography of Pinkhes-Dov Goldenshteyn. Set in Ukraine and Crimea, this unique autobiography offers a fascinating, detailed picture of life in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Tsarist Russia. Goldenshteyn (1848-1930), a traditional Jew who was orphaned as a young boy, is a master storyteller. Folksy, funny, streetwise, and self-confident, he is a keen observer of nineteenth-century Eastern Europe, both Jewish and non-Jewish. His accounts are vivid and readable, sometimes stunning in their intensity.The memoir is brimming with information; his adventures shed light on...