"Tolstoy wrote in his diaries that one has to have an extraordinary gentle sensitivity to feel the pain of a fish cut to pieces when still alive. The fish is mute and its cry does not reach our ear. The same is true about detecting the pain of the demonic prankster, Kalman the Cripple. Only a great artist can be blessed with the sensitivity and ability to discover Kalman's own wounds when he was injuring others. Only the true artist can find the remnants of his soul in his mutilated body. Yehuda Elberg is blessed with this sensitivity". -- S. Kantz in Yehuda Elberg, Essays About His Writing, edited by Professor Gershon WeineA character study that reads with the suspense of a detective novel, Kalman the Cripple is the story of an individual living in a Jewish shtetl in Poland, just before World War II.True-to-life characters -- saints, dunces, Jews, non-Jews, rabbis, and petty politicians -- populate Kalman's shtetl. He is a cunning, ill-tempered man who maliciously seeks revenge on others. Yet, in his portrayal, Elberg paints Kalman as tortured soul, one with whom the reader ultimately has no choice but to sympathize.Elberg's vision of a world that is redeemable finds eloquent voice in Kalman the Cripple. Although Kalman deliberately causes harm, eventually he just as deliberately claws out a better world for those he loves. Throughout, Elberg's fluid language creates an unforgettable story.