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.