The Rudashevski Diary

Global Conversations: Samuel Kassow & David Slucki Discuss 'The Rudashevski Diary'

The upcoming issue of The Jewish Quarterly presents the diary of Yitskhok Rudashevski, a Jewish teenager in the Vilna Ghetto. An only child, Rudashevski was transferred to the ghetto at age 13 and used a small notebook to chronicle his experiences, wonder, hopes and regrets. The diary was later discovered in an attic which was the final hiding place for him and his parents.

The issue includes an essay on the diary by Samuel Kassow, one of the world's leading historians of Ashkenazi Jewry and the Holocaust. Kassow's insights into the rich Jewish life of Vilna before the Holocaust, and the extent of the cruelty that followed, as well as his account of the life and times of Rudashevski, provide a compelling introduction to the diary and its significance.

Join Samuel Kassow in conversation with David Slucki as they discuss Yitskhok Rudashevski's remarkable diary, filled with the observations of a teenager whose belief in culture, history and knowledge defied the cruelty that surrounded him.