Moche The Beadle

Essay Topic: People refused not only to believe his stories, but even to listen to them. Why didn’t the Jewish take any notice of Moche’s warnings?

Moche the Beadle worked continuously at a Hasidic synagogue. The Jews of Sighet in the “little town in Transylvania were very fond of him”. The townspeople never felt embarrassed by him though he lived poorly and humbly. Moche was able to make “people smile with his waiflike timidity” therefore making nobody feel encumbered by his presence. When Moche was transferred along with the other foreign Jews and driven to a forest on Polish territory he witnessed the most horrific of slaughterings. On arrival back to Sighet several months later “Moche had changed. There was no longer any joy in his eyes. He no longer sang. He no longer talked to [Elie] of God or the cabbala”. Moche had “wanted to come back, and to warn [the townspeople]” of the tragedy that had occurred yet nobody had wanted to listen to him. The Jewish commu...