A Wandering Feast: A Journey Through the Jewish Culture of Eastern Europe (Arthur Kurzweil Books) [Paperback]

Yale Strom (Author), Elizabeth Schwartz (Contributor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 078797188X | ISBN-13: 978-0787971885 | Publication Date: October 19, 2004 | Edition: 1

An original and uplifting view of a world lost, reborn, and rediscovered This is a delightful book that welcomes the reader to a wonderful journey through the Jewish culture of Eastern Europe: the still-vibrant villages and homes, the Yiddish folkways, the toe-tapping Klezmer music, and heart-warming traditional food. Yale Strom documented his journey--organized around fourteen specific visits to authentic villages in Eastern Europe--with a fascinating travelogue that includes inspiring stories, photographs, music that has never been printed, and recipes. He reveals that a culture long feared to be gone forever is still very much alive.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A Wandering Feast is rambunctious, festive, enlightening and . . . yes, tasty."
--Ilan Stavans, author, On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language

"Captures, preserves, contectualizes, and celebrates life."
--Annette Insdorf, author, Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust

"A vehicle for an evocation and examination of his personal odyssey, and ultimately of Jewish history and identity."
--Eva Fogelman, author, Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust

"Strom proves himself a master storyteller and archivist of the lost Jewish worlds of post-Holocaust Europe."
--Thane Rosenbaum, the author of The Golems of Gotham, Second Hand Smoke, and Elijah Visible

From the Back Cover

A Wandering Feast is a delightful book that welcomes the reader to a wonderful journey through the Jewish culture of Eastern Europe. Page after page, you will visit the still-vibrant Jewish world and discover Yiddish folkways, toe-tapping klezmer music, and heart-warming traditional food. Yale Strom and Elizabeth Schwartz have documented an amazing journey–organized around visits to authentic cities and villages in Eastern Europe–with a fascinating travelogue that includes inspiring stories, photographs, music, and recipes. A Wandering Feast reveals that a culture long feared to be gone forever is still very much alive.

"A Wandering Feast is rambunctious, festive, enlightening and . . . yes, tasty."
–Ilan Stavans, author, On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language

"Captures, preserves, contectualizes, and celebrates life."
–Annette Insdorf, author, Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust

"A vehicle for an evocation and examination of his personal odyssey, and ultimately of Jewish history and identity."
–Eva Fogelman, author, Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust

"Strom proves himself a master storyteller and archivist of the lost Jewish worlds of post-Holocaust Europe."
–Thane Rosenbaum, the author of The Golems of Gotham, Second Hand Smoke, and Elijah Visible

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (October 19, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078797188X
• ISBN-13: 978-0787971885
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,117,749 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "Lost" World --Found, November 12, 2005

By 

Terry L. Haywoode (West Roxbury, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Wandering Feast: A Journey Through the Jewish Culture of Eastern Europe (Arthur Kurzweil Books) (Paperback)

This remarkable and moving book takes the reader through the heart of central Europe to places few tourists will ever visit. The author, Yale Strom, is seeking old Jewish music. He wants to find and record klezmer tunes and Chasidic Ngunnim. His quest takes him to tiny forgotten villages, ancient schuls, kosher kitchens and kehilum.
On his journey, he finds the buildings and streets that bear the imprint of old Jewish communities and he finds unfogettable people. They shelter him, feed him, show him the places that mark the Jewish past. They tell him their proud, heartbreaking stories, full of courage and tragedy and faithfully recorded by the author. Most of all, they play and sing the music he came to hear. He meets Rom people as well and notes with some surprise, the similarities between their music and Jewish music.

His gift to us, his readers, is that he brings it all back in this wonderful book. It includes the music itself, recipes for the food he ate, biographies and photographs of the people he met and accounts of his wonderful adventures among these fierce and loving people. There is even a Yiddish glossary and thumbnail histories of Jewish life in various places. The richness of even the remnant of Jewish culture will amaze you.

I hope that you will buy this book and share it with friends and family. It provides a glimpse of a wonderful world that is almost gone, but as the author demonstrates, not quite.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An endearing and memorable memoir, April 18, 2011

By 

Lori A. Crockett (Petersburg, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Wandering Feast: A Journey Through the Jewish Culture of Eastern Europe (Arthur Kurzweil Books) (Paperback)

I loved reading the author's memoirs about his travels and his experiences and was not overwhelmed by the discussions about music. I knew nothing of Klezmer before I started reading, but that din't matter. I love cooking and so enjoyed being given recipes with their cultural heritage and history. That made cooking them all the more exciting and meaningful. Each recipe I have tried, I will cook again; some have become favorites already. They are very accessible recipes with easy to find ingredients. I am interested in anything related to the Holocaust and parts of the world affected by it but little know to the rest of the world. He gave such an endearing picture of life in these places, I will always rememeber the people and places he shared with me through this memoir.