Synopsis Of Moishe The Beadle

1) Plot Synopsis:

Moishe the Beadle is a poor Jewish man who lives in Sighet with the narrator, Eliezer Weisel. Ond day Eliezer asks his father to teach him the Kabbalah, but his father says that Eliezer is too young to learn it. One night, Moishe the Beadle finds Eliezer why he is praying and Eliezer says that he is not sure; he then asks Moishe what is his reason to pray. Moishe says that he does “not do it to learn by heart but to discover with in the very essence of divinity.” Soon after this, Moishe begins to teach Eliezer about the Kaballah. Later, one day, all the Jews are expelled, including Moishe – as he is a foreigner. In a few months, Moishe returns and tells the story: the Gestapo took over and forced all of the people to build trenches. Then they made people walk up to the trenches and shot them. Moishe was shot and left to die, however, he recovered, and moved between Jewish homes every night. Upon his return to Sighet, he tells people to be careful, but no one takes that into mind.

In a few years, the Nazi's threaten to attack the Jewish people, however, Sighet does not fear this as they think that nobody will actually come. Soon, the Germans came to Sighet. After the people of Sighet celebrate Passover, a few rules begin to become enforced: Jewish people cannot keep valuable items, leave their houses for more than three days or they will be killed, and they must wear the Jewish star at all times. Subsequently, two ghettos are created and the Jews are moved to them. There, Jewish Republics are formed. Then, Eliezer's father returns with the news that they will all be deported. He says that all of the people will be allowed to take only one bag and they will be taken somewhere unknown the next day. At 8 A.M., po...

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...eft Gleiwitz with a hundred prisoners but made it to Buchenwald with only a dozen people, a dozen people which included Eliezer and his father.

Moishe becomes weak and Eliezer begins to wish his father would die so he would only have to take care of himself. He feels guilty about this and takes his father to a doctor to find out that Moishe has a very high fever. People tell Eliezer to give up on his father and he again feels guilty for even considering this. The next morning, Moishe's body is gone and Eliezer sadly feels good about it.

Eliezer stays in Buchenwald for almost a year and nothing seems to matter to him after his father died. One night, American tanks are seen and all the men grab food. Eliezer obtains food poisoning and goes to the hospital. Upon recovering, he looks at himself in the mirror and sees a corpse – this vision stays in his mind forever.