Eastern European Jewry of the 19th century saw a tremendous population explosion, but the Czar made sure they faced grim times. Not only were Jews restricted from living anywhere but in the Pale of Settlement, Jewish children were conscripted into the Russian army as young as age ten. With stories of how the cantonist threat led to desperate measures, criminal behavior, and resentment against the rabbinate, Rabbi Wein captures the spirit of these harrowing years of Jewish history.

• the Czar's three-prong formula for the Jews: one-third emigration, one-third assimilation, and one-third extermination
• how the Industrial Revolution urbanized the world in general and the Jewish people in particular
• daily life in the Pale of Settlement
• quotas, "chappers" and other terrors of the cantonist system