A Day of Small Beginnings
by Lisa Pearl Rosenbaum
List Price: $24.99
Pages: 384
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 0316014516
Publisher: Little,Brown
Poland, 1906
On a warm spring night, in the small Jewish cemetery of Zokof, Friedl Alterman is wakened from death. On the ground above her crouches Itzik Leiber, a reclusive, unbelieving fourteen-year-old whose fatal mistake has spurred the town's angry residents to violence. The childless Friedl rises to guide him to safety-only to find she cannot go back to her tomb. Now Friedl is trapped in that thin world between life and death, her brash decision binding her forever to Itzik and his family: she is fated to be forever restless, and he, forever haunted by the ghosts of his past.
Years later, after Itzik himself has gone to his grave, his son, Nathan, knows nothing of his bitter father's childhood. When he begrudgingly goes to Poland on business, Nathan decides on a whim to visit his ancestral town. There, in Zokof, he meets the mysterious Rafael, the town's last remaining Jew, who promises to pass on all the things Itzik had failed to teach his son-about Zokof, about his faith, and about himself.
And yet, like the generation before him, Nathan keeps what he learns hidden inside himself. With the family legacy in danger of being lost, Friedl's restless spirit guides Itzik's precocious granddaughter, Ellen, on a journey of her own to Zokof, where only Friedl can help Ellen unlock the mysteries of her family's past-and only Ellen can help Friedl break her agonizing enslavement.
A stunning debut novel of enormous scope and beauty, A Day of Small Beginnings tells the timeless story of the Leiber family; of the secrets that break them, the love that binds them, and the town that is both their curse and their redemption.
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1. When we first meet Freidl, she speaks to us from the grave. Why is she so susceptible to Itzik the Faithless’ entreaties for mercy from God that she would return to the living on his behalf?
2. One of the characters asks, How do you know who you are if you don’t know where your family came from? (see, page 65) Why do you think this question might be of special significance for Americans?
3. Freidl’s favorite saying from the Talmud is: Every blade of grass has its own guardian star in the firmament which strikes it and commands it to Grow! Why do you think this saying has such resonance for her? What does it mean to you?
4. The subject of Polish-Jewish relations is very prominently treated in this story. How would you describe the two peoples’ attitudes towards one another and what do you think lies beneath those attitudes? Do you see changes in the nature of their relationship from 1906 to today?
5. Over the course of the novel, what changes take place in the characters’ understanding of prayer and in their belief, or disbelief, in God?
6. What was required for Freidl to rest in her grave and what did Ellen do to help her? What do you think happened to Freidl at the end of the story?
7. How does Freidl affect the lives of Itzik, Rafael, Nathan, Ellen and Marek? How did they affect her?
8. How were Nathan, Ellen and Marek changed for having met Rafael?
9. Why didn’t Itzik the Faithless tell his family why he left Poland? What were the consequences to his son and granddaughter for his having kept his past a secret?
10. How do you think things will work out between Ellen and Marek and why?
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