From the Heart of Israel

Rabbi Dr Bernard Drachman (1861-1945) was a leader of Orthodox Judaism in the USA in the early 20th century. He was born in New York to parents who were immigrants from Galicia and Bavaria, and grew up in Jersey City, NJ. His early education was at the Hebrew Preparatory School, and after graduating with a BA from Columbia College in 1882 he earned a scholarship at the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau, Poland, where he received his rabbinic ordination in 1885. He also earned a Ph.D from the University of Heidelberg in 1884. Drachman was so influenced by the deep piety of Eastern European Jewry, with which he had come into contact for the first time, that he became entirely committed to Orthodoxy. On his return to the US he first officiated as rabbi to the Oheb Sholom congregation in Newark, NJ, next to Beth Israel Bikkur Cholim in New York City, and later to the congregation of Zichron Ephraim. Drachman assisted Dr Sabato Morais in founding the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1886 and was appointed preceptor in Biblical exegesis, Hebrew grammar, and Jewish philosophy. In 1889 he was elected dean of the faculty, a position he held until the founding of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York in 1902 when he took on the office of instructor in Bible and Hebrew grammar, and was also acting reader in codes in that institution. His aim in publishing this book of stories in 1905 was to familiarise the reader with the various aspects of Jewish life through the medium of fiction and so remove the mystery surrounding them. With illustrations by Abel George Warshawsky, and a glossary of Hebrew and other non-English terms. 3