Author: Stuart F. Tower

ISBN: 1932211020

Between 1881 and 1914, about 50, 000 Jews left Eastern Europe and the Settlement of the Pale in Russia for America. Most emigrants from Russia or Poland traveled by train to their embarking sea ports; however, in eastern Romania trains were either unaffordable or less accessible. As a result, there arose groups of individuals known as Fusgeyers (Yiddish for “they who go by foot”) who literally walked across hundreds of miles through Europe to catch ships to America.  

In his book The Wayfarers, Stuart F. Tower has written a compelling fictional tale based on this significant event of one such group that marched out of Birlad Romania in April 1904. Their journey led them across Hungary, Austria, Moravia, and Bohemia ending four months later at the German sea port of Bremerhaven where they sailed on the Cincinnatus to New York.

Tower frames his tale around a Californian, Nathan Friedman, who travels to Birlad with his son Herb and grandson Rico in search of his roots. It is in Birlad where he meets with Rabbi Yossi Nachman, who is the son of a rabbi who lived in the village in 1904, where Nathan Friedman's father last lived before emigrating to America. Friedman hopes and prays that the elder Birlader Rabbi passed onto his son Yossi information, oral or written, pertaining to the legacy of the Fusgeyers. 

Tower's narrative performs a feat deserving top applause in remembering these courageous poor souls who encountered relentless anti-Semitism as they crossed hostile countries while flying the unpopular Star of David flag. Tower vividly captures the group's instinct for resistance and defiance, as well as taking on risks without concern for the odds or consequences. Their survival no doubt can be attributed to their instinct of self-preservation; however, as the story of the Fusgeyers unfolds we notice that it was their innate zeal to test their limits that led to their survival. It was also their organizational skills and self-discipline that kept their spirits in high gear most of the time, notwithstanding the many unpleasant encounters they endured along the way.

Committees were set up to take care of food, entertainment, health matters, fund raising, and there were individuals in charge of map reading, defense, English education, keeping time and recording of events. It should be pointed out that although the group did carry firearms, they generally chose to fight oppression by employing more restrained means and diplomacy.

Tower cleverly creates a matrix of meaning-connecting the facts that he uncovered in his five years researching the topic of the Fusgeyers with the history of the era.  Much of the material that Tower weaves into his tale is intriguing, particularly the hostility and xenophobia that was very prevalent at the time. Tower also supplies, when necessary, historical background and introductions to important figures as Theodore Herzl, Franz Kafka, William Frederick Cody (Buffalo Bill), Max Nordau and others.

The Wayfarers is not a collection of pieces cobbled together or an almanac of loosely related information. It is rather a sequence of carefully arranged chapters each completing the last and leading the reader to the next that are connected by smooth transitions. Tower crafts his narrative with an admirable fluidity with dialogue that is realistically shaped. He even throws in a fair number of Yiddish words and for those who are not conversant in the language, there is a brief glossary at the end of the book.

I have been informed that there is a movie in the works and I look forward to seeing the movie as well as reading more from Stuart F. Tower.

The above review was contributed by:  NORM GOLDMAN:  Editor & Publisher of Bookpleasures.  Here are more of  Norm Goldman's Reviews       

To read Norm's Interview with Stuart F. Tower CLICK HERE