ha-Zeman u'Mikreihu (Memoir of Hayim Shereshefsky), Manuscript on paper, Baltimore: 1872

35 leaves (6 3/4 x 4 1/2 in.; 170 x 115 mm). Written in brown ink on paper in square and semi-cursive Hebrew script with a few words of text in German semi-cursive on title page. Decoration to title page and f. 2r. Paginated in Hebrew characters. Some chipping of edges, tape repairs, lightly yellowed and stained, some pages cracked near the lower gutter. Half morocco over marbled boards, spine cracked with losses.

An important firsthand account of immigrant life in the late nineteenth century

With poetic flair and a penchant for wordplay, the author of this journal, Hayim Shereshefsky, a native of  Taurage, Lithuania, recounts the trials and tribulations of his life and the misfortunes, both personal and commercial,  that led to his emigration from Europe to America in 1872.  Crossing the Atlantic on a ship with over 600 passengers, Shereshewsky, the only Jew on board, subsisted on bread, tea and coffee so as not to transgress the laws of kashrut.

Written in an exacting hand, this personal diary continues to chronicle Shereshefsky's life upon his arrival. His descriptions draw a particularly vivid portrait of  nineteenth-century Jewish Baltimore.  When he was unable to find other employment, he became an itinerant peddler, as did many Jewish immigrants in this period. Shereshewsky writes of sometimes walking as far as twenty miles in a day, laden with a heavy load of wares in his pack. While the poignant tales in this chronicle of life as a Jewish peddler in Baltimore reflect the difficulty of living in America, the philosophical reflections and poetry which are interspersed throughout the text demonstrate that Shereshefsky was a man of uncommon wit and erudition.