Night

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Hasidic: a very conservative sect of Jews which comes from 19th Century Poland.
Setting: Translyvania

Cabbala: Study of Jewish mysticism;
Mysticism: study of the occult; for example, astrology; tarot and the Cabbala – sometimes spelled Kabbala.

The Kabbalist studied the Talmud, the first five books of the Old Testament; by converting the letters of the Talmud into numbers, the Kabbalist hoped to divine the mind of God.

Moshe the Beadle: a sweet tempered beggar who was deported because he was a foreigner. He was put in a cattle cart and transported to a remote place in Poland where he and the other Jews were forced to disembark from the trains and dig their own graves. The Gestapo, German police, shot them all. The Gestapo threw babies up in the air and used them for target practice. Moshe survived because he was shot in the leg and was left for dead. He managed to find his way back into Translyvania. He told stories about a young girl who took three days to die.

No one in Sighet believed Moshe the Beadle; they thought he was crazy.