Holy Beggars: A Journey from Haight Street to Jerusalem Aryae Cooperstein Aryae Coopersmith, a 22-year old college student in 1960s San Francisco, meets the charismatic rabbi and folk singer Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach and decides to start a community for him. He rents a house and moves in with his best friends Efraim and Leah. Before long they find themselves - and their house - at the center of the San Francisco spiritual revolution as thousands of young people - Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Sufis, and followers of countless gurus - flood in through their doors, all drawn by the atmosphere of love and Shlomo's music and teaching. Giving concerts to packed halls all over the world, inspiring people by the thousands, Shlomo is recognized as Judaism’s most influential musician, and one of its greatest spiritual leaders, of the late 20th century. The community, the House of Love and Prayer, opens a new chapter of American Judaism, and becomes an historic part of the legend of 1960s San Francisco. On fire with the dream which Shlomo has inspired, Efraim and Leah leave San Francisco and head to Jerusalem, where they become ultra-Orthodox Hasidim. Many others from the "House" follow. Aryae stays behind and eventually settles into a secular life as a Silicon Valley business owner. After Shlomo dies, Aryae feels compelled to tell the story. To try to understand the lives of his old friends and pull together the scattered fragments of his own, he travels to Jerusalem. This profoundly moving memoir, going back and forth between Haight Street and Jerusalem, tells a story of grace, loss, redemption, and ultimately of acceptance. It invites us to reflect on the deep mysteries of our own lives, our teachers, friendship, and the glory of the journey.