Yiskor

By a grave in a cemetery, a Jewish boy asks his uncle the meaning of the Yiskor memorial ceremony thay they are observing. The uncle suggests that the boy asks the rabbi, and after the ceremony is completed, the rabbi explains that they are praying for the soul of a Jewish martyr. He then tells the following story, which he says occurred in a Polish village called Ostodar, 150 years earlier: Not far from the castle of a stern count, lives a Jewish boy named Leibke, who was reared by a Christian stepmother. The count's overseer, who looks out for Leibke, gets him a position as a hunter for the count, and soon the count's daughter falls in love with him and appoints him chief huntsman. Leibke doesn't respond to her advances, and her attendant, upset that her own lover Stepan, a rabid anti-Semite, was not made chief huntsman, tells the countess that Leibke loves Kreindel, the daughter of a Jewish innkeeper. Leibke and Kreindel plan to marry, but the jealous countess calls him to come to her room, ostensibly to congratulate him on his upcoming marriage. She toasts the marriage with wine and tries to get Leibke drunk, and when he attempts to leave, she pretends to faint. Leibke carries her to her bed, but when she then hugs and kisses him, he throws her down. In response, she strikes him with a whip and accuses him of attacking her. Leibke is sent to a dungeon in the prison tower, but a hunchback, who is Leibke's friend, tells the count's overseer, and together they devise a plan to free him. After his escape, Leibke returns to the inn, where the rabbi advises him and Kreindel to marry immediately and leave the village. Following the wedding, they ride off together. Stepan, ordered by the count to bring Leibke back, interrupts the Jews' religious service and reads a decree from the count that if Leibke does not present himself in twenty-four hours, he will take ten Jews as hostages. After Stepan leaves, the rabbi asks for volunteers, and although the members of the congregation hesitate at first, after the rabbi volunteers to be the first Jewish hostage, others join him. The hunchback finds Leibke and Kreindel in a cave, and when Leibke learns of the count's decree, he gives himself up. During a celebration in which a dancing bear is whipped mercilessly, the head of the bear is removed to reveal, to the countess' horror, Leibke unconscious. She rebukes the laughing guests, as the sadistic Stepan drags Leibke off, then visits Leibke in the dungeon, where she declares her love for him. Leibke rebukes her, and she vows to force him to love her, but he says that no matter what she does, she will not succeed. She immediately swallows poison from her ring and dies. The count, grief-stricken, accepts Stepan's accusation that Leibke was responsible for his daughter's death and orders a grave to be prepared for Leibke. Although the Jews offer all their possessions to the count through his overseer to try to save Leibke's life, the count remains obstinate and does not even listen to the arguments of his own priest against executing Leibke. The Jews come to the graveyard and watch outside a gate as Leibke is buried alive in the grave. Afterward, they cut krish , pieces of their coats, and mourn. Back at the graveyard in the present, the rabbi, having finished telling the boy the story, leads the congregation in the Kaddish , or mourning prayer.