My Memories

Born in Kamenets Litovsk (today in Belarus) to an affluent family, Yekhezkl (Yekhezkel) Kotik was brought up under the Hasidic influence of his father, though his family had traditionally been Misnagdic. Kotik eventually abandoned Hasidism, and moved throughout the Pale of Settlement, trying to provide a living for his family as, variously, a leaseholder, a melamed, and a shopkeeper. While living in Kiev (Kyiv) in April 1881, he witnessed a pogrom, prompting him to move to Warsaw, where he remained the rest of his life. His autobiography Mayne zikhroynes (My Memories), first published in 1913 at the encouragement of his son, became popular in the Yiddish literary world. Describing shtetl life in an unsentimental tone, the memoir is thought to be the first of a genre of Yiddish biography that emerged in the early twentieth century.