Sefer ha-zikhronot (The Book of Memories)

A lay religious functionary who served as teacher, ritual slaughterer, mohel (circumciser), and cantor for Jews of rural Alsace, Asher ben Eliezer Halevi was born in Bavaria, then raised in the vicinity of Metz. From ages eleven to nineteen, he traveled to Metz, then to Prague, Vienna, and throughout central and eastern Europe in pursuit of his studies. In 1622, he married and settled in his wife’s hometown, Reichshofen, in Alsace. Asher’s memoirs illuminate the daily lives of rural Jews, networks among dispersed communities, and their relationships with the wider Jewish world.