My first acquaintance with The Jewish Quarterly (JQ) came by way of a miniature treasure—small in dimensions but towering in scope—that arrived in my mailbox after I ordered it from Yivo: The Rudashevski Diary . Just 204 pages of a small handwritten notebook, were fully and superbly translated from Yiddish and accompanied by a wonderful introduction. The diary was the work of Yitzchak Rudashevski begun at age 14 in 1941 and completed in 1943, all of it composed in the Vilna ghetto.

“The first ghetto day begins. I run right into the street. The little streets are still full of a restless mass of people. It is hard to push your way through. I feel as if I were in a box. There is no air to breathe… It is Yom Kippur Eve. A sad mood suffuses the ghetto. People have such a sad High Holy

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