ABSTRACT
Composed in 1915, The Shamed Trumpet describes the tragic uprooting of a Jewish family from a Volhynian village on the eve of Passover as a result of the promulgation of the notorious "Temporary May Laws" in 1882. These laws banned Jews from further settling in the villages of the so-called Jewish Pale. The story opens with a portrayal of the idyllic, if uncertain, situation of two Jewish families living in a village. The setting echoes Hayyim Nahman Bialik's quasi-autobiographical reminiscences of his childhood in a similar village (Random Harvest). Despite the non-Jewish environment in which the two families reside, they scrupulously adhere to their Jewish way of life. Passover commemorates the freeing of the Jews from Egyptian bondage, their triumphal exodus from Egypt, and their march to the Promised Land. In Jewish tradition it symbolizes the redemption of the Children of Israel and of all humankind.
