A continuing project of Bais Kaila has been to publish a series of books. This has been done both as a fund raising project and as a service to the english-reading public. As a continuing fund raising effort we will be publishing many of these books in full on the Web.

To sponsor a book call (732)370-4300 or send email to books@baiskaila.com

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The Promised Child introduces the saga of the Pulichevers, a rabbinic family who have served for generations as Rabbonim in Pulichev, a small city in the southern provinces of the Kingdom of Poland. The story begins in the early part of the seventeenth century with Reb Mendel and Sarah Pulichever embarking on a journey of hope to Krakow and reaches its startling climax over thirty years later with a return to Krakow for a dramatic and memorable confrontation affecting the Jewish population of the entire region.

The Promised Child is a work of fiction. The city of Pulichev, the Pulichever family, and the events in this book are fictitious, although it was certainly not uncommon for a Jewish child to disappear into a monastery and never be heard from again. To a certain extent, however, many of the episodes in this entire series are based on actual events. The historical background relating to the Jewish community and the political situation in Poland is authentic.

It was the dawn of the twentieth century. A new spirit of freedom, tolerance and hope was sweeping the world, but in reactionary Czarist Russia, a macabre, thoroughly medieval drama was unfolding - a blood libel! A Christian child was found murdered in a suburb of Kiev, and a Jewish factory manager named Mendel Beilis was accused of killing him and using his blood for the Passover matzos. This preposterous charge and the arrest and trial of Mendel Beilis, an obviously innocent scapegoat, scandalized the modern world. The battle lines were drawn between the enlightened and the bigoted. Mendel Beilis became more than an innocent man falsely accused. He became a cause celebre, a gallant symbol of the fight against the forces of darkness that would soon engulf the world in a disastrous war.

The first edition of Mendel Beilis' autobiography was self-published in New York in 1926 under the title The Story of My Sufferings. This new edition, Scapegoat on Trial: The Story of Mendel Beilis, has been newly annotated and revised to correct the awkwardness of the original translation from the Yiddish. It also features an insightful introduction, which provides an illuminating historical context.

This then is the story of Mendel Beilis in his own words, a memoir of personal tragedy, pain and courage, replete with disturbing images. Mendel Beilis did not seek to wear the mantle of martyrdom for his people, yet once it was thrust upon him, he wore it with dignity and pride.