In 2003-04, Bartov traveled to Eastern Galicia to search for remnants of the rich pre-Holocaust Jewish culture and for Holocaust memorials. In his travel notes and reflections on historical memory in Ukraine, he shows how the memory of the Jewish past is deliberately erased. There is a strong tendency to hide from sight or to demolish or desecrate all remnants of Jewish life and civilization in Eastern Galicia. Memorial tablets commemorating Nazi massacres do not mention that the victims were Jews or that many of the murderers were Ukrainians. In an attempt to create a national myth of the Ukrainian nation as a martyr of Soviet oppression, Jews are slandered and anti-Soviet organizations like OUN and UPA, which took part in the genocide of Jews, are extolled. In many cases, sites of Jewish life and death are filled with symbols of Ukrainian nationalism and glory. Presents quotes from the present-day Ukrainian antisemitic press blaming Jews for alleged "crimes" against the Ukrainian nation. Includes brief accounts of the events of the Holocaust in some of the places that Bartov visited.

Hannah Rochel Verbermacher, a Hasidic holy woman known as the Maiden of Ludmir, was born in early-nineteenth-century Russia and became famous as the only woman in the three-hundred-year history of Hasidism to function as a rebbe—or charismatic leader—in her own right. Nathaniel Deutsch follows the traces left by the Maiden in both history and legend to fully explore her fascinating story for the first time. The Maiden of Ludmir offers powerful insights into the Jewish mystical tradition, into the Maiden’s place within it, and into the remarkable Jewish community of Ludmir. Her biography ultimately becomes a provocative meditation on the complex relationships between history and memory, Judaism and modernity. History first finds the Maiden in the eastern European town of Ludmir, venerated by her followers as a master of the Kabbalah, teacher, and visionary, and accused by her detractors of being possessed by a dybbuk, or evil spirit. Deutsch traces the Maiden’s steps from Ludmir to Ottoman Palestine, where she eventually immigrated and re-established herself as a holy woman. While the Maiden’s story—including her adamant refusal to marry—recalls the lives of holy women in other traditions, it also brings to light the largely unwritten history of early-modern Jewish women. To this day, her transgressive behavior, a challenge to traditional Jewish views of gender and sexuality, continues to inspire debate and, sometimes, censorship within the Jewish community.