Zev Bronfman, an angry atheist who was brought up in a Hassidic home escapes death from a falling beam. This near death experience was a wakeup call for Zev, who leaves his parents for a not-so-lucrative job as a cab driver in New York City.

Adirondack Mendel’s Aufruf: Welcome to Chelm’s Pond by Sandor Schuman is a fictional book, taking place in upstate New York which reprises some of the old Jewish tales of the fools of Chelm.