Pioneers: The First Breach

Pioneers: The First Breach by S. An-sky, translated from the Yiddish by Rose Waldman, 221 pages.
Set in the 1870s during the time of the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, this was written in 1903 and published in different forms several times in the early 20th Century, Waldman's translation is the first in English for this novel by the prolific Jewish writer (most famous, perhaps, for his play The Dybbuk). 
Zahman Itzkowitz was an orphan who found a new, though not altogether comfortable, home as a Yeshiva student. Naturally curious and relatively bright, he, along with almost all of his fellow students in the Yeshiva at Vitebsk,  became interested in learning more about the world outside of their community as the Haskalah swept through Jewish communities. Turning away from their religious studies, the boys at the Vitebsk Yeshiva risk being seen as heretics by their community. When Itzkowitz is forced to leave Vitebsk and the Yeshiva he travels to Miloslavka and becomes a tutor to the children of the village, teaching Russian, Yiddish, math, a little geography and anything else that will bring in a few kopecks. As he settles in Milslavka Itzkowitz must decide who he is and what he believes.