In 1936, Joseph Margoshes (1866-1955), a writer for the New York Yiddish daily Morgen Journal, published a memoir of his youth in Austro-Hungarian Galicia entitled Erinerungen fun mayn leben. In this autobiography, he evoked a world that had been changed almost beyond recognition as a result of the First World War and was shortly to be completely obliterated by the Holocaust. In telling his story, Margoshes gives the reader important insights into the many-faceted Jewish life of Austro-Hungarian Galicia.We read of the Orthodox and the Enlightened, urban and rural life, Jews and their gentile neighbors, and much more. This book is an important evocation of an entire Jewish society and civilization and bears comparison with Yehiel Yeshaia Trunk's masterful evocation of Jewish life in Poland, Poyln.

Introduction by Ira Robinson and Simcha Fishbane. 1. Family Memoirs. 2. My Mother¿s Family. 3. My Father. 4. Reb Mordecai Peltz. 5. the Belzer Rabbi. 6. Ignatz Deutsch. 7. The Krakow Rabbi. 8. The Newspaper. 9. Hospitality. 10. The Talner Rebbe. 11. My Father¿s Death. 12. YaHäSh. 13. Jacob Werber, the Master of Haivri. 14. My Childhood. 15. Melamdim. 16. Gemara Melamdim. 17. My Two Girlfriends. 18. Haskalah. 19. Reb vovtshi¿s Kloyz. 20. In Tornow. 21. The Tarnow Kloyz. 22. Kloyz-boys. 23. Reb Naftoli Reb Pesakh¿s. 24. Shidukhim. 25. I Become a Khosn (Groom). 26. My Wedding. 27. After the Wedding.28. Village Work. 29. I Get ¿Shot¿. 30. I Get ¿Bound¿. 31. Riding a Horse. 32. I Become a Merchant. 33. Yozefov. 34. Velvele Damask. 35. Radomishla. 36. A Fallen ¿Takef¿. 37. At the Rebbe¿s in Dembitz. 38. A Strike in the Zgursk Manor. 39. Jews and Peasants. 40. Pritsim, Gendarmes and Priests. 41. Pritsim, Gendarmes and Priests (continued). 42. The ¿Wedding¿. 43. Shimshen Asheim. 44. Theft. 45. Shtsutsin (Szczuczyn). 46. The Sold-Off Estate. 47. Wet and Dry Years. 48. The Wet Year. 49. The Dry Year. 50. Uncle Moshe Lind. 51. Out of Yozefov. 52. The Shtsutsin Meadows. 53. Oshitz. 54. Uncle Khazkl. 55. Yitzhok Mordkhe Bernstein. 56. My Business Ventures in the Shtsutsin Meadows. 57. My Father-in-law and His Enemies. 58. Criminal Proceedings. 59. Pikolovka. 60. The Takeover of Pikolovka. 61. Punishment or Coincidence? Margoshes Family Genealogy. Glossary. Index.