Siberian
Odyssey Part 1: The Exiles
Siberian
Odyssey Part 2: The Immigrants
Part 1:
The Exiles
Joseph Sadovitch is a well-educated family
man who had always dreamed of being a rabbi, but due to limited
opportunities in Minsk he could not find a position. He settled for a
job as a clerk in his father’s wine shop so that he could support
his family.
On his way home from work one day Joseph
comes upon a Jewish home that is on fire. Looters are running in and
out of the building while a Russian policeman stands idly by. Joseph
confronts the policeman for his inaction and in a moment of explosive
anger, strikes him. This act of violence gets him arrested by the
Russian authorities. He is tried, convicted and sentenced to permanent
exile in Siberia. From then on he will be considered as one dead.
Wrenched from his home, wife and children, he faces a grim future
joining a band of other exiles for a grueling two-year march to the far
eastern corner of Siberia. He travels over 4,000 miles, exhausted,
regretful, his mind numb.
After his years of hard labor at the prison
are complete, he is released into the frontier town of Nerchinsk, where
he has to start a new life. Feeling at first overwhelmed by his new
freedom, he gradually gets to know people in the community and begins
to relish the possibilities of rebuilding his life.
Along the way, he meets and befriends many
people: Abraham Hersch, a widowed tailor, his daughter Hya, and Yevsay
Zaslavski, a young fur trapper, son of another Jewish exile.
Part 2: The Immigrants
Michael Gladstein is the ranch foreman for a
Polish nobleman living in a village near Russian-occupied Warsaw until
a pogrom forces he and his family to leave their home and move into the
Pale of Settlement. When the Tsar opens up land in Siberia to allow
more Jews to travel east and settle, Michael, a widower, takes his twin
sons, Chaim and George, to drive a herd of cattle into Siberia where he
hopes to realize his dream of being a ranch owner.
The twins need wives before they leave,
however, so a matchmaker is consulted. Chaim is introduced to a girl
named Toyba and they marry. George refuses to marry before they leave,
but meets someone on their journey with whom he falls in love. Michael
and his sons and daughters-in-law travel together across the plains
toward their dreamed of ranch in the Trans-Baikal.
The story of the exiles continues in alternating chapters.