This book is dedicated to my father, YomTov (Yonteleh) Beider from Trochenbrod. He went to Palestine in 1932, changed his name to Chagai Bendavid, immigrated to the United States in 1939, and died thirty years later in Washington, D.C. He mentioned Trochenbrod infrequently, yet his longing and affection for it were unmistakable. The memory of that affection impelled me to find a way to stand where that mysterious place was, to try to feel the soul of it, and inspired the years of research that led to this book.

Chagai Bendavid is the one holding the cigarette in this photo of a construction crew in Tel Aviv, in 1934.