"Tsar, Tsarevich, Shoemaker, rebel" is a novel about the growing up of a soul searching for light among the shadows of history. Girsh, a boy from poor Birzula, orphaned at an early age, discovers the world and dreams of escaping from a place where life is cramped. His path leads to Moscow, a city of seething ideas, hopes and blood, where the old order is crumbling and a new, no less cruel one is being born. Moscow at the beginning of the twentieth century greets the young man with the anxiety of change and the temptation of ideas. The experience of being a rebel and witnessing violence is sobering for Hirsch. Amidst the noisy streets and the revolutionary turmoil, he tries to preserve the main thing — the ability to think, doubt and love. This is a non-trivial prose that combines the paradoxical thinking with the desire to better understand the nature of the spirituality of his people. Dean Rubin.