Abyss Of Despair

Providing a gripping, first-hand account of the Chmielnicki massacres in 1648-58, in which tens of thousands of Jews perished in Poland and the Ukraine, Rabbi Nathan Hanover describes the events themselves and their effect on European Jewry. Hanover's description of the atrocities commited* by Chmielnicki and his hordes makes it clear that they set the precedent for Hitler's torture chambers. Hanover's account of the events understood in their historical context 'shows how humans can transcend tragedy and rebuild their lives, developing new ways to express their heritage and culture.

Professor Helmreich, in his new introduction, describes the- period of relative peace and prosperity for the Jews immediately preceding the massacres. He traces some of the important effects the massacre had on later Jewish history, such as the rise of Messianic and Hasidic movements in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the migration of Jews back toward the west, where they were situated when the Enlightenment swept through Europe.

William B. Helmreich is professor of sociology at CUNY Graduate Center and City College of New York and served as director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Queens College. He is author of eleven books, including The World of the Yeshiva: An Intimate Portrait of American Orthodoxy and Against All Odds: Holocaust Survivors and the Successful Lives They Made in America, which won the 1993 National Jewish Book Award.