[2][3] Yasha Mazur (Alan Arkin) is a turn-of-the-20th-century Jewish stage magician, womaniser, con man, and mystic.

Yasha anticipates success, but Zeftel announces she is emigrating to America – to "Buenos Aires" – where a man has promised her work.

To save Zeftel, Yasha performs a special show of magic and card tricks for the pimp and gives him money.

His mystic vision of death having come true, he encloses himself in a brick hut with only a window, through which to receive food and communicate with people as a holy man, dispensing wisdom and blessings.

She is a widow, heavily veiled in black mourning, who has also heard of the holy man in the brick hut who spends his days in prayer and study of the Torah.

Suddenly she pulls back her veil and reveals that she is Elzbieta, come with Bolek and some friends to avenge Magda's death by killing Yasha.

[4] As an example, Time Out London wrote "Golan overdramatises, tips into hysteria, and substitutes a specious mysticism that is sadly literal.