Since World War II, the sub-Carpathian Mountain region once known as Maramarosh has remained "Judenrein" (free of Jews). Jewish Maramarosh lives on, however, through the contributions to scholarship and humanity of Maramarosh Holocaust survivors and their progeny, including Nobel laureate Elie Weisel and the Talmud scholar Professor David Halivni-Weiss. Maramarosh Shoah survivor and Talmud scholar Professor Elieser Slomovic here provides access to a collection of responsa literature, most of it out of print and previously available only or primarily in Yiddish. Through personal queries about how to live Torah-instructed lives and rabbinic responses, the reader is invited to enter the world of Jewish Maramarosh, where Hasidism flourished and rabbinic scholarship reflected human nobility manifested through the pragmatics of poverty and the dynamics of living closely with nature. Professor Slomovic, recognizing the fluidity and balance over time provided by Talmudic thought as exemplified through rabbinic teaching, invites the reader to join the discourse on the everyday life of everyday people.
"In addition to being a scholarly work, this book is also a personal memoir. Known and little-known events fill its pages. . . . Essays, childhood memories from the ghetto and the camps, fascinating response problems both timeless and new, deeply moving meditations on faith and suffering, despair and hope, reflections and descriptions: they are all in this remarkable book, which can be described as a rewarding quest for both intellectual enrichment and nostalgic remembering. I recommend it to readers everywhere: it is a true gift. And a blessing too."
