This made me wonder how someone totally unfamiliar with that language might react to it. Yiddish words are liberally scattered throughout the book. We learn that Gittel, the narrator who is now 18, regularly sends Devory letters without stamps because there is no address to which these letters can be mailed. The first chapter is in the form of a letter.

But no one came to her aid.Ĭhronology is askew in this book as the story moves back and forth between two decades. Prior to her death, poor Devory became increasingly unhinged as she acted out in various bizarre ways. The reason for this tragedy? Her older brother Shuli was sexually abusing her, and her parents, her siblings, her best friend Gittel, her school principle and the entire community looked the other way. She committed suicide when she was only nine years old. In a nutshell, here is the story: Devory, who appears in chapter one, is actually long dead. There are clear parallels with this novel. But the ubiquity of surveillance cameras made the killer’s identity obvious to the police early on. If you recall that tragedy with all its attendant horrors, at first the Hassidic community tried to resolve it internally. When queried, the author confessed that the catalyst for revealing her true identity was “something unspeakable” - the Leiby Kletzky murder. She is Judy Brown, a descendant of the founders and leaders of the Hassidic movement in 19 th- and 20 th-century Poland and the granddaughter of the Gerrer Rebbe, the leader of Agudah Israel in prewar Europe. Her mother is Ruthie Lichtenstein, director of the Holocaust resource center Project Witness and publisher of the English-language edition of Harmodia, the daily newspaper of the Hassidic community. This controversial book was first issued under the anonymous authorship of 'Eishes Chayil' - which means “righteous person” - but eventually the author “outed' herself on the Huffington Post blog. We read it as part of Jewish Family Services of Greenwich’s Book Beat, and a very lively discussion ensued. Hush was originally published as young adult fiction, but I definitely recommend it for the adult reader.

Hush by Eishes Chayil