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Essays by the noted neo-Orthodox author Selig Schachnowitz. The title describes the books as sketches out of suffering (Skizzen aus Litthauen). The text is comprised of six pieces, namely, Sie und wir (they (you) and we); Echo; Der alte Daitsch (The old German); Das rollende Strafgericht (The rolling criminal court); Der Fremde Chazan (The strange Chazan); and Im Kampfe mit Dämonem (In the battle with Dämonem). Skizzen aus Litthauen has its original outer binding which includes a vignette of palm trees and a shed. While most of Schachnowitz’s writings can be found in major collections Skizzen aus Litthauen is particularly rare and is not included in the catalogues of most libraries.
Selig Schachnowitz (1874–1952) was a journalist and writer. He was born in Georgenberg, Lithuania, and after studying in Lithuanian yeshivot proceeded to Germany, where he continued his religious education, combining it with a general education. Greatly impressed by the Frankfort neo-Orthodox school, he represented an amalgam of eastern and western Orthodoxy and brought a new spirit into the latter. Appointed teacher and cantor to the community of Endingen, he began his educational activities there, both by lecturing and by writing popular articles on Judaism, including Jewish thought, history, and belles lettres. In 1908, the heads of Agudat Israel in Germany invited him to become editor of Der Israelit, in which post he served for 30 years at Frankfort on the Main, until the journal was closed down by the Nazis in 1938. He escaped to Switzerland, taking up residence in Zurich, where he continued his public and literary work until his death. Schachnowitz was one of the few leaders of the Agudah to oppose their separatist tendencies and to assume a positive attitude toward the upbuilding of Erez Israel, an attitude which was reflected in Der Israelit. Following a visit to Erez Israel in 1931, he wrote Zwischen Ruinen und Aufbau in Erez-Israel (1932), which praised agricultural settlement there, despite the author's strong reservations about the lack of religious observance in the new Israel.
Although his various publicistic works were of a religious propagandist nature, many were of a high literary standard and attracted numerous readers. Schachnowitz succeeded particularly in portraying Jewish life in Galicia and Lithuania to Western Jews, thus helping to break down the barriers of prejudice against the "Ostjuden." Many of his books are collections of his articles in Der Israelit and other periodicals. They include Merelaka (1910), Luftmenschen (1912), Jenseits (1915), and Die Messias-Braut (1925). His Judenstaat der Chasaren (1920), Abraham ben Abraham (1930), and Licht aus dem Westen (1933), a biography of R. Moses Sofer (the "Hatam Sofer"), were translated into Hebrew and the last also into Hungarian. In his Flucht in die Heimat (1935), Schachnowitz expressed his belief in Erez Israel as providing the solution of the Jewish problem.
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