To Enlist the Enthusiasm of the Young

This chapter highlights retrospective accounts and contemporary sources that attest to and lament the phenomenon of the abandonment of tradition due to the inroads of secular ideologies. It recounts Ben-Zion Gold’s encounter with newer religious institutions and initiatives that contributed to him remaining traditional. It also looks at contemporary sources that noted the pain of parents confronted with open flouting of religious norms within the four walls of their own homes. The chapter analyzes interminable debates on the shtetl or the Jewish market town in the face of modernity encroaching upon its traditional lifestyle. It talks about the perception of the shtetl’s imminent disappearance that led one writer to compose a ’travelogue’ of a visit to a typical shtetl so that future generations might know how Jews lived once upon a time.