The Gentleman from Cracow. By Issac Singer - Commentary; New York, N. Y. Vol. 24, (Jan 1, 1957) - A Short Story

 The Gentleman from Cracow. By Issac Singer - Commentary; New York, N. Y. Vol. 24, (Jan 1, 1957) - A Short Story

In THE COMMUNITY HOUSE THERE WAS A PARCHMENT WITH A CHRONICLE ON IT, BUT THE FIRST PAGE WAS MISSING AND THE WRITING HAD FADED. ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER, “THE GENTLEMAN FROM CRACOW” - quoted in The Lost: A Search for Six Million by Daniel Mendelsohn

Issac Singer (1902-1901-born Poland) won the Nobel Prize in 1986 for the full body of his work. He is best known to the public as the author of Yentil, the basis for a very popular movie. Singer's, even though he left Poland in 1935 because of the rise of the Nazis, work is very rooted in the culture in which he was raised. He became an American citizen. Singer died and is buried in Florida. . He indicated his biggest influences as a short story writer were Anton Chekhov and Guy de Maupassant 

You may read the story on Commentary Website

It is included in The Collected Short Stories of Issac Singer

I have already posted on three of Singer's stories, I was motivated to read "The Gentleman from Cracowby the reference in MeMendelso's book.

The Gentleman from Cracow is one of the most famous of Singer's stories. Set in a town in Poland with a mixed population of Jews and Gentiles, it is a very exciting work going into ancient Ashkanazi beliefs.  

I really do not want to at all spoil the plot of this gripping story. A 30 year old Jewish doctor, a widower arrives in Cracow. He is obviously very rich. Every matchmaker in town approaches him with a potential bride. He purposes a grand party be held in which all unmarried of age girls come along with eligible bachelors. He provides money for beautiful clothes and offers a huge dowry for every match made. The local Rabbi warns the people to be cautious but no one listens.

Then things turn very strange, very dangerous 

The Gentleman from Cracow originally written in Yiddish, then translated under the supervision of Singer. I have no information besides this on the translation.

"Born in 1904 into a family of rabbis, Singer grew up in a devout household in Warsaw’s Jewish quarter, but he also spent time in the villages and market towns of eastern Poland, most notably Bilgoray, where he took refuge with his mother and brother during World War I. He had firsthand exposure to forms of Jewish folk culture that were destroyed by the Nazis, and many of his works testify to the richness of that annihilated world. In his stories set in Poland, Singer drew upon vernacular traditions for tales imbued with a wild, sometimes mischievous, often disturbing supernaturalism that was an outgrowth of local storytelling but containing dark undercurrents born of his own concerns and obsessions. At the same time, his skeptical but never dismissive engagement with religion and spirituality—and the opposing forces of secularism—enabled him to take part in the creative ferment of Jewish modernism but also distance himself from its politics and literary methods." From Library of America edition of his stories

Moshkeleh the Thief - A Novela by Sholom Aleichem - 1913- translated from the Yiddish with an Introduction by Curt Leviant- 2021 - 61 pages

Moshkeleh the Thief - A Novel by Sholom Aleichem - 1913- translated from the Yiddish  with an Introduction by Curt Leviant- 2021 - 61 pages 

“This almost-forgotten novel by one of the greatest Jewish writers of all time is revelatory, vividly depicting an all-too-rarely-seen side of Yiddish literature and Jewish life; its rendering here, by one of Jewish literature’s greatest translators, provides a crackling energy befitting its material. Don’t start it too late in the evening; you won’t be able to put it down.” —Jeremy Dauber, Columbia University professor and author of The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem 

a very informative conversation with Curt Leviant on Moshkeleh The Thief

This was The first work of Yiddish literature focused on criminals.

Sholem Aleichem

1859 Born in The Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire

1916 Dies in New York City.  His funeral is attended by 250,000

To most people, certainly me a few years ago, Yiddish writers were divided into two categories, Sholom Aleichem and a bunch of authors I have never heard about whom I would never have read were it not for Yale University Press giving me a full set of The Yale Yiddish Library.  These nine volumes, introduced by top authorities in Yiddish Studies, include some of the great classics.

Among the works were two totally marvelous novels  by Sholom Aleichem.  All of the works were pre-Holocaust, written in Eastern Europe and Russia.  All were by men.  As Yiddish speakers left Europe, mostly to NYC then Toronto and Montréal women writers like Blume Lempel and Chava Rosenfarb began publishing in Yiddish.  I have talked a bit about the history of Yiddish Literature (running from around 1875 to maybe 2004 with the passing of the last of the emigrated writers) in prior posts.  My perception is most seriously into Yiddish Literature, a huge treasure trove of Short Stories, are “heritage readers” seeking ties with the world of their ancestors in Eastern Europe.  Behind it is also a powerful message to those who would destroy Jewish Culture, you lose, we win.  I read in this area because it is an incredibly wonderful literature.  The stories range from heart breaking to funnier than a Mel Brooks movie.  Yiddish scholarship has very strong support and thanks to the internet, and maybe especially The Yiddish Book Center, interest is  growing.  YouTube has lots of good videos and readings of stories.

Sholom Aleichem is by far now most known Yiddish writer.  He is most famous from the movie Fiddler on the Roof based on his Tevye Cycle, centering on a Russian dairyman and his relationship with his daughters. 

Moshkeleh the Thief, set in a small mixed community, centers on a famous horse thief.  Moshkeleh came from a respectable Jewish family.  He was sent to traditional schools to study the Torah but instead he met accomplished thieves.. We learn about the various kind of thieves. There were pick pockets, House burglers, strong arm robbers, kidnappers, informers for hire, experts at bribing officials and horse thieves.  Thieves have their own argot. 

The work was first published as a serial in a popular journal, Moshkeleh Ganev, Warsaw. so there are lots of exciting events to draw readers to buy the next issue. Moshkeleh wanted to get married.  Marriages were mostly arranged and no decent Family wanted him for a son in law.  He became  

 enamored with a teenage girl, following her around until he realized it was futile.

In an interesting subplot, a Young Jewish woman runs away from her home to marry a Gentile.  Her parents hire Moshkeleh to kidnap her.

The introduction by Curt Leviant

details the publication history of the work.

Curt Leviant is the prize-winning author or translator of more than twenty-five books. Besides Sholom Aleichem, other Yiddish writers he has translated include Chaim Grade, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Avraham Reisen.

Moshkeleh the Thief is a very valuable edition to translated Yiddish.

Mel Ulm

 

Yiddish Paris : Staging Nation and Community in interwar France by Nicholas Underwood. - 2022 - Paris in July 2022

 

Sign up page For Paris in July 2022

Yiddish Paris : Staging Nation and Community in interwar France by Nicholas Underwood. - 2022 - Paris in July 2022

This will be my eighth year participating in a wonderful event, Paris in July.  The event hosts are Reader Buzz and Thyme for Tea.  Posts on any and all things Paris are welcome.  You can share your memories of a trip to Paris, your favorite French recipes or restaurants, art in the  Louvre, your favorite set in Paris Movies (mine are Ninotchka and Midnight in Paris).  Of course the French literary masters as well as contemporary writers are great subjects.

Last year I posted on six short stories by Russian Émigré writers who loved to Paris after the fall of the Tsars among others works.

Paris in July is an excellent way to meet bloggers outside the Book Blog world, to expand your knowledge of Parisian history and culture.  

Paris was the escape destination for Yiddish speaking Russian and Eastern European Jews in the 1920s and 30s seeking refuge from vicious pograms. .  Some academics and social activists arrived fluent in French but the vast majority of arrivals spoke Yiddish as well as Russian 

or Polish but no French,  arriving with few resources beyond a willingness to work very hard, a commitment to Ashkenazi traditions, and their families.  In his very well documented Yiddish Paris : Staging Nation and Community in interwar France Nick Underwood details how Yiddish Émigrés integrated into Parisian society, created organizations to support left  wing political goals, taught new arrivals French, helped each others find jobs.  As France is taken over by the Germans many Yiddish speaking Jews were sent to death camps while the luckier of richer ones escaped to New York City.  

There are chapters on The Yiddish Theater in Paris, Yiddish Newspapers, Parisian Yiddish culture on the world stage, and more.

I highly endorse Yiddish Paris : Staging Nation and Community in interwar France by Nicholas Underwood for anyone interested in Paris between the wars.  Anyone with a serious interest in the Yiddish diaspora from Eastern Europe and Russia should treat this as required reading.

Nick Underwood

Expertise

Modern Jewish history, Modern European history, modern French history, cultural history, Yiddish studies, performance studies, history of fascism and antifascism, urban history.

Professional Experience

Nick has taught courses on modern Jewish, European, and World history at Sonoma State University, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Napa Valley College. He has held postdoctoral fellowships at the GHI Pacific Regional Office at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan.  He also serves as managing editor for the journals East European Jewish Affairs and American Jewish History and as project manager for the Digital Yiddish Theatre Project 

Education

• Ph.D., University of Colorado, Boulder
• M.A., American University
• B.A., Florida State University”

From https://www.collegeofidaho.edu/directory/nick-underwood

Mel Ulm

Romance of a Horse Thief by Joseph Opatoshu (1912, 67 pages)

One of the stars of the movie version was the author's son David Opatoshu, a very successful Broadway and motion picture actor.  This is sometimes shown on the Turner Classic Channel. 

Ruth Wisse in her introduction to Romance of a Horsethief described it as one of the first attempts to portray a criminal underworld in Yiddish literature. The central character of the story is a horsethief.   It can be seen as a corrective reaction to the perhaps overly romantic  works of Sholem Aleichem and others who depict the world of Fiddler on the Roof.   

One of the standard features of literatute devoted to criminals is an attempt to portray people and society in a very realistic fashion.  Some equate realisism with literature that stresses only the negative aspects of human nature but Opatoshu avoids that.  His villain has been a professional horsethief all his adult life.   He steals horses in Poland and takes them to Germany and vice-versa. There are two thieves in this story. Shloyme is in many ways a decent man.  He is a devout Jew, a good father who wants to find decent spouses for his children.  Zanvl, a much younger man, says a thief has no need for prayers or the rituals of the temple.  He is single and he attracts women drawn to the excitement of a "bad boy".   He has a lot of raw energy.   He and Rachael fall in love but Rachael cannot accept the life of the wife of a professional criminal and ends up marrying a Rabbi, as her father wants.  

The real villain of the story is a middeman, a former thief now considered a respectable businessman, who brokers the stolen horses.   

There is a lot of action and excitement in the story. The characters are not perfect. The village is controlled by a Cossack chief in exhile from his homeland.  He tolerates the widespread horse thiefery until his own prize horses are stolen.  I am glad to have read The Romance of the Horse Thief and hope to see the movie one day.

       1886 to 1954 born Poland, died New York City 

Joseph Opatoshu

(Yosef Opatovski)

O. was born on 1 January 1887 in Mlawa, Plotsk Gubernia, Poland. His father was a lumber merchant (the family lead yikhusfor the [tusfut] holiday, a Jew, a scholar, one of the first meschilimin Poland, he wrote songs in Hebrew. From age ten to twelve he attended the trade folkshul in Mlawa, learning with his father. At age fourteen he entered into a trade school in Warsaw. At the end of 1905 he went away to Paris, then went to the politechnium in Nancy, but after several months he returned to Mlawa. He began to write, and he became acquainted with Peretz. In March 1907 he immigrated to America, where he worked for several weeks in a factory, carrying [fanander] English newspapers, and he became a Hebrew teacher, completing in 1914 his studies as a civil engineer, occupied, however for only a short time with a profession and he dedicated himself to literature. In "Tsukunft" in 1920 he published programs for a drama "Beym toytn bet", in "Tsukunft", March 1922 he published a one-acter "In salon", and when in 1922 A. visited Poland, he collaborated with the material for a three-act drama "Heynt blut", which was staged on 25 October 1922 in the Central Theatre in Warsaw (Director: Zigmund Turkow). In the same hear through "amateurs" there was staged in Poland a dramatization of A.'s "Roman fun a ferd-gnb".

In December 1928 he was in Warsaw through the society "Forbert-film" under the direction of Jonas Turkow, who produced a film from A.'s novel "Di poylishe velder" with the participation of  Yiddish and well-known Polish actors. The same novel was dramatized by Jacob Vaksman and staged in 1928 in Lublin. There are five novellas in the collection from which this comes.  Here is the publisher's (Wayne State University Press) description. The five short novellas which comprise this anthology were written between 1890 and World War I. All share a common setting—the Eastern European Jewish town or shtetl, and all deal in different ways with a single topic—the Jewish confrontation with modernity. The authors of these novellas are among the greatest masters of Yiddish prose. In their work, today's reader will discover a literary tradition of considerable scope, energy, and variety and will come face to face with an exceptionally memorable cast of characters and with a human community now irrevocably lost. In her general introduction, Professor Wisse traces the development of modern Yiddish literature in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and describes the many shifts that took place between the Yiddish writers and the world about which they wrote. She also furnishes a brief introduction for each novella, giving the historical and biographical background and offering a critical interpretation of the work. Published by: Wayne State University Press I think anyone with a serious interest in Eastern European literature would love this book. Mel u

An Exchange of Letters Between America and the Old Country - A Short Story by Sholem Aleichem (Story probably written 1910) Translated by Curt Leviant from Yiddish

An Exchange of Letters Between America and the Old Country - A Short Story by Sholem Aleichem (Story probably written 1910)

Translated by Curt Leviant from Yiddish

You can read the story here.

Published Summer 2019 in Pakn Treger, The Magazine of the Yiddish Book Center

Sholem Aleichem

1859 Born in The Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire

1916 Dies in New York City, then part of The U.S.A.  His funeral is attended by 250,000

To most people, certainly me a few years ago, Yiddish writers were divided into two categories, Sholom Aleichem and a bunch of authors I have never heard about that I would never have read were it not for Yale University Press giving me a full set of The Yale Yiddish Library.  These nine volumes, introduced by top authorities in Yiddish Studies, include some of the great classics.

Among the works were two totally marvelous novels  by Sholom Aleichem.  All of the works were pre-Holocaust, written in Eastern Europe and Russia.  All were by men.  As Yiddish speakers left Europe, mostly to NYC then Toronto and Montréal women writers like Blume Lempel and Chava Rosenfarb began publishing in Yiddish.  I have talked a bit about the history of Yiddish Literature (running from around 1875 to maybe 2004 with the passing of the last of the emigrated writers) in prior posts.  My perception is most seriously into Yiddish Literature, a huge treasure trove of Short Stories, are “heritage readers” seeking ties with the world of their ancestors in Eastern Europe.  Behind it is also a powerful message to those who would destroy Jewish Culture, you lose, we win.  I read in this area because it is an incredibly wonderful literature.  The stories range from heart breaking to funnier than a Mel Brooks movie.  Yiddish scholarship has very strong support and thanks to the internet, and maybe especially The Yiddish Book Center, interest is rapidly growing.  YouTube has lots of good videos and readings of stories.

Anyway Sholom Aleichem is by far now most known Yiddish writer.  He is most famous from the movie Fiddler on the Roof based on his Tevye Cycle, centering on a Russian dairyman and his relationship with his daughters.  

Letters between America and "back home" were a very important part of  the emotional support systems for Yiddish speaking immigrants to America.  Of course most immigrants paint a glowing picture of America.

The story is told through two letters, one sent from New York City by Jacob (formerly Yenkl, the Americanizing of his name is a very big matter) to his close friend Yisrulik back in the "old country" and his friend's answer. His friend lives in Russia.. The time period of the letters is in 1905.  Sholem Achleim's first readers would have known this from the events described by Yisrulik.  (In his very well done introduction Curt Leviant provides us with the background we need.)

Here is the start of the letter from America, notice the American slang expressions such as "blue funk" and "eating our hearts out".   "Mr. Krushevan, that damned anti-Semite and president of the Fourth Duma" referred to was a journalist responsible for widely circulating the codicils of the elders of Zion and inciting anti - Jewish violence.  He was not in fact ever executed.

"To my dear friend Yisrulik, may you and your wife and children be inscribed for a year of health and happiness, and may God’s blessings come upon all Israel, amen.

We’ve been worried stiff because you haven’t written us any letters. We’ve been walking around in a blue funk ever since that period of revolution, constitution, and pogroms began back home in the old country. We’re literally eating our hearts out. If the papers here in America aren’t bluffing, then those revolutionaries have probably made mincemeat of half the world already.

Every day we get wind of another sensational event. Last night I read a cable that they strung up Mr. Krushevan, that damned anti-Semite and president of the Fourth Duma. Let me know if that isn’t a lot of hot air. And write me about your business. Are you still working for someone or are you on your own? And how’s Khane-Rikl? What’s Hershel doing? And how is my cousin Lipa? And how about Yosl, Henikh’s boy! And Bentsi and Rokhl? Zlatke? Motl? And the rest of the tailors? Are you thinking of coming to America? Fill me in on all the details in your next letter.

Of course he relays the news of his family:

"The only thing we miss is . . . home. We’re homesick something awful. My wife, Jennie (we don’t call her Blume anymore), doesn’t leave me alone for a minute. She keeps nagging me to take a trip back to Russia and visit our beloved, dear ones in the cemetery. You’d never recognize Jennie. She’s a regular lady, rigged out in hat, gloves, and all the trimmings. I’m en­closing a snapshot of her and the rest of the family. What do you say to my oldest boy? That’s Motl. Now he’s called Mike. He’s an “alrightnik.” He works in a factory and earns ten, twelve dollars a week. If only he wouldn’t gamble, he’d be a topnotch alrightnik.

My other boy, Jack, used to work in a factory too. He managed to pick up a bit of English and is now a bookkeeper in a barbershop. My third rascal, Benjamin, is a barroom waiter. He doesn’t get wages, but he brings home between six and eight dollars a week in tips. My fourth boy, the one in the picture wearing a cap, is a loafer. He doesn’t want to go to school but hangs around outside on the street day and night playing ball.

The girls are okay too. They work in shops and have some cash in the bank. The only trouble is that I see neither hide nor hair of them. They step out whenever they like, go wherever they like, and with whomever they like.

America’s a free country. You’re perfectly free to keep opinions to yourself. You can’t even tell your own daughter who to marry".

The letter from the old country is written in a classic fashion readers  of Sholem Aleichem will recognize.  Start with humour, then relay in a matter of fact way some terrible events, deaths, murders in pograms and then close with humour.

His friend says America sounds like a place he wants nothing to do with.

"An Exchange of Letters Between America and the Old Country" is a miniature master work, readable in under five minutes.  It would make a good first work by Sholem Aleichem.

Mel u

What’s the Meaning of Hanukkah? - A Short Story by Mende l. Moykher-Sforim - translated from Yiddish by Ri J. Turner

 You Can Read this story here 

January 2, 1836 - Kapyl, Belarus

December 8, 1917 - Odessa, Ukraine

Shalom Aleichem called him "The Grandfather of Yiddish Literature"

As the story opens one man tells his friend he has experienced a Hanukkah miracle, his friend tells him he is talking nonsense, Hanukkah is a celebration of an historic miracle, not one person's private event.

The argument is really fun to read,. I want to share enough to give you a feel for the rhythm of the prose.

"What’s the point of arguing with a beys-medresh old-timer? As far as you’re concerned, we, today’s Jews, aren’t Jews at all, and you house-of-study bookworms from the olden days have some kind of contract with the Master of the Universe, an exclusive claim to yidishkeyt.”

“Nothing you’re saying, Ignatz, is in the least connected to the story that I mean to tell you. By the way, today’s not the right moment for such quarrels. We have better things to do—throw together a card game, eat latkes, and spend time with the crowd. That’s why I invited you over, my good fellow—but seeing as the other guests haven’t arrived yet, and you brought up this touchy subject, well—I’ll just have to give you a thorough answer. You understand, we’re all Jews, whether observant or maskilim, God-fearing or secular. I, for example, ‘dwelt in the tents of Shem’ from earliest childhood, in kheyder, in yeshive, whereas you went to ‘school’ and don’t yet know the meaning of ‘the yoke of Torah,’ yet nevertheless we’re both Jews. So what’s the difference between us? Yidishkeyt engraved itself in my heart, in my mind, and in each of my 248 limbs. I, and those like me, have a special appreciation for Jewish custom—it’s in our bones, whether we know it or not. Even if we stray, even if we convert—God forbid!—we’ll never forget the feel of yidishkeyt. But when it comes to someone like you—someone who never ‘immersed himself with Torah and devotion,’ a bal-tshuve, a newly observant Jew who didn’t bear the yoke of yidishkeyt until long after childhood—you simply can’t appreciate the true flavor of a Jewish custom, a Jewish commandment, even if you’re docile and good and perform every action with the greatest fervor.”

“Oh, go on, Shmuel; you and your nonsense! That’s nothing more than what the idlers say behind the oven in the house of study, bleating and philosophizing whether or not anyone is listening. No one’s yet proved any of it.”

The man talks about his memories of observations of the holiday when he was a young, his father and others would debate the meaning of the holiday:

"“And what did they talk about? The matter at hand, of course. Every few minutes, a question could be heard above the clamor: ‘What’s the meaning of Hanukkah?’ They wrinkled their brows, scrunched up their faces, bit the tips of their beards—but they couldn’t answer the question! One of the fellows stood up, quoted something from the Talmud, developed his argument, added new bits of evidence, interpreted it all with enthusiasm, and showed great perspicacity. From all those fine, convoluted speeches, I understood only one thing: the Gentiles polluted all the oil in the Temple, and when the Hasmoneans overpowered them and drove them out, only one small jug of oil sealed with the high priest’s seal was left. That jug should have lasted for only one day, but a miracle took place, and the light kept burning for eight full days."

The ending surprised me and I am not comfortable thinking I fully understood the closing lines. 

I am grateful to Ri J. Turner for allowing me to read this story.  I look forward to reading more of her work

Ri J. Turner is currently an M.A. student in the Department of Yiddish at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She is a three-time alumna of the Uriel Weinreich Summer Program at the YIVO Institute in New York, and was a Translation Fellow of the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA, in 2014. Her translations and original writing have appeared, in English and in Yiddish, in The Forward, Afn Shvel and Pakn Treger.

Mel u

Theatre: A Sketch by Mariam Karpilove -1937 - translated from Yiddish by Jessica Kirzane - 2019

You May Read Today's Story Here

Mariam Karpilove

“Theater: A Sketch” this story, previously existing only in hand written form in Yiddish has been translated by Jessica Kirzane.

1888 - Minsk, Belarus

1905 -Moves to New York City, later moves to Bridgeport, Connecticut

1956 - Bridgeport, Connecticut

This story, one of hundreds she wrote ,is the first to be translated from Yiddish into English.  Set in the world of Yiddish Theater in New York City, around 1939.  Hitler was in power in Germany but America had not yet entered the war. German anti-Semitic atrocities were beginning to be reported in The Forward and elsewhere but the full horrors were not yet a matter of public consciousness.

As we begin, we are at the office of a director of Yiddish plays. A woman is there to offer her play for production.  The producer and musical director, , both men,have a markedly patronizing attitude toward the playwright, suggesting it is scenery and costume that are most important.  I want to share with you enough to give a feel for the encounter and see what a joy Kizane has given us:

“The director impatiently glanced from his clock to the door of his office. He had an appointment with a young lady who had written a play. The musical director was also there to hear the lady read her play to see how much music he could insert into it and where it would go. 

The two theatre men had big plans for how they would make the play happen. They both agreed that the most important elements of any production were the scenery and the music. It was nice if the writing went well with it. And this play would attract more interest because it was written by a woman.

“A Lady with a Play,” muttered the director, who was also the star, with a nasal twang. “That’s what I have here! What a fine name for a play—A Lady with a Play! That sounds like a hit!”

The musical director demurred, saying there would be plenty of time to give the “child” a name. He seemed to recall that the lady had already named the play herself…

“Who cares what she called it? I can change it to whatever I like. I can write the whole thing over if I want to. She won’t object, so long as I agree to put on her play. It’s her first ‘baby’ isn’t it?”

She begins to read them the play.  The men only half pay attention.  The producer says a play by a woman will market well.

“She had a captivating voice, calm and gentle, that stroked and rock them to sleep. Seeing the effect her voice was having on them, she raised it higher and louder. She played the role of the heroine. The partisans in the forest were asleep and didn’t see the danger, the murderous Nazis were approaching. The heroine, the heroic partisan, cried out, “Wake up! Wake up! You have to get up! They’re coming! Shoot! Shoot!” She was so absorbed in the role that she seemed to have frightened herself with her screams.

Even more than she, the men who were listening to her were startled. They leapt to their feet and their eyes darted around the room. “Huh? What? Where’s the fire? What happened?”

“The whole world is on fire,” the playwright lamented in a tragic voice. “The whole world is on fire, and we’re asleep…”

Hearing her answer, they calmed down. They exchanged glances and then asked her to keep reading.

She read on. In order to prove to her that they weren’t asleep, they interrupted her with questions that only served to demonstrate that they had no idea what her “skit” was about.

“What happens next?” asked the star director. “What happens after he forces her against a wall? What happens with the courtesan?”

The confusion between “partisan” and “courtesan” in the passage below is a brilliant touch, so sad but still darkly hilarious.  A Play about a courtesan sounds like a much better draw then one about partisans.

The men want woman in the play to have a baby with the resitance leader, for add pathos  and “liven up the play”.  I laughed out loud when the musical director suggested adding a group dance number in the forest.

The playwright loses control:

“This isn’t an operetta or a burlesque!” the playwright cried. “It’s a tragedy, a memorial to the victims, to the martyrs, to all those who were killed…” She was overcome with emotion and couldn’t say anymore. She placed the manuscript back in its folder and made a move to return it to the briefcase, but the star director stopped her, telling her to calm down. He told her to read the play to the end and then they would talk business. They wouldn’t add anything to the play or take anything away without her permission. Of course some changes would be necessary to make the play appropriate for the stage. Writing is one thing and acting is another. But together, these two things… She has rich material, but it could be improved”

I do not want to relay to much more about this work, just imagine Grace Paley and Roger De Bris collaborting.

This story is tremendous fun and takes us into a nearly lost world,that of Yiddish theater. This is a delightful work.

From The Encyclopedia of The Jewish Women. 

Miriam Karpilove was one of the most prolific and widely published women writers of Yiddish prose. Her short stories and novels explore issues important in the lives of Jewish women of her generation. Frequent themes are the upbringing of girls and women in Eastern Europe, the barriers they encounter when they seek secular education, and the conflicts they experience upon immigration to North America. For instance, one of Karpilove’s best-known works, Dos Tagebukh fun an Elender Meydl, oder der Kamf Gegn Fraye Libe [The diary of a lonely girl, or the battle against free love] addresses the central anxiety of the young immigrant woman: how to negotiate emotionally satisfying relationships in a new, sexually liberated culture.

Born in a small town near Minsk in 1888, to Elijah and Hannah Karpilov, Miriam Karpilove and her nine siblings were raised in an observant home. Her father was a lumber merchant and builder. Karpilove was given a traditional Jewish and secular education, and was trained as a photographer and retoucher. After immigrating to the United States in 1905, she became active in the Labor Zionist movement and spent the latter part of the 1920s in Palestine. She resided in New York City and in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where several of her brothers had settled.

One of a handful of women who made their living as Yiddish writers, Karpilove debuted in 1906, publishing dramas, feuilletons, criticism, sketches, short stories, and novellas in a variety of important Yiddish periodicals during her fifty-year career. Her work appeared in Fraye Arbeter Shtime, Tog, Groyser Kundes, Tsukunft, Forverts, Haynt, Yidisher Kemfer, and Yidishes Tageblat, among others. She is best known, however, as a writer of serialized novels. More than twenty of these appeared in leading American Yiddish daily newspapers such as Forverts, Morgen-Zhurnal, and Tog. During the 1930s, Karpilove was a member of the Forverts staff, publishing seven novels and numerous works of short fiction in that paper between 1929 and 1937. Only five of Karpilove’s works were published in book form.

Jessica Kirzane.

https://jessicakirzane.com/

Jessica Kirzane teaches Yiddish language as well as courses in Yiddish literature and culture.  She received her PhD in Yiddish Studies from Columbia University in 2017. Kirzane is the Editor-in-Chief of  In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies. In addition, she has held several positions at the Yiddish Book Center:  Translation Fellow in 2017-18, Pedagogy Fellow in 2018-19, and as an editor and contributor to the Teach Great Jewish Books site of the Yiddish Book Center.  Her research interests include race, sex, gender, and regionalism in American Jewish and Yiddish literature.

I hope to soon read her translation of Diary of a Lonely Girl, or The Battle against Free Love forthcoming January 2020.

I hope she is working on a 

collection of short stories by Miriam Karpilove.

Mel u

A Jewish Refugee in New York - A Novel by Kadya Molodvsky - 1942- translated from Yiddish by Anne Norwich - 2019

A very informative article by the translator, Anita Norwich

Kadya Molodovsky

May 10, 1894 - Bercze, now Belarus, then part of The Russian Empire

1935 - moves to NYC with husband

1942 - publishes A Jewish Refuge in New York (previously published in serial

1949 to 1952 - resides in Israel, with her husband 

March 23, 1945 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

A Jewish Refugee in New York, is presented as if it were a journal of 107 entries beginning on December 15, 1939 and ending on October 6, 1940.

It tells story of Rieke Zilberg’s first ten months in New York City.  Rieke, twenty years old, left Lublin, Poland after her mother was killed in a German bombing raid but before Jewish residents were sent to concentration camps or to work as slave laborers.  She goes to live with her aunt.  She arrives speaking no English.  Left behind in Lublin are her fathe, brother and a boyfriend she was expected to marry,  

Molodovsky does a very good job letting us experience her first days in New York City, living with her mother’s sister.  She feels a bit lost, she misses her mother very much.  Before her arrival the aunt had a young African American woman doing household work.  Soon after Rieke’s arrival her aunt tells her the maid has teken sick and Rieke will need to temporarily fill in for her.  About a month later Rieke puts in her journal that someone saw the maid working in a store.  New arrivals are called “Greenhorns”.  Rieke slowly begins to learn of the abuse of Jews back in Lublin.

One of her first concerns is to get a job, to earn some American money.  She has no job skills but gets a first job as a helper to a seamstress. Everything is facilitated through contacts. As i have learned in nonfiction works, immigrants from Lublin have an association and help new arrivals. She finds the first of a series of jobs.  She knows she has to learn English and she wants to get her own place. Her aunt and others tell her that at age twenty she will soon be seen as an “old maid”.  She makes friends New York City, a very fast paced place in comparison to Lublin.  She worries more and more about her father and brother as she gets word about actions of the Germans.  

The journal entries are all very well done.  We see her gradually learning English. She rents her own place. She acquires a suitor, an Americanized immigrant.  Her Lublin boyfriend has moved to Palestine and sends her letters asking her to join him but she knows America is better and safer.

I enjoyed this book a lot. It is a fine addition to Yiddish Literature in translation.

This post Is part of my participation in womenintranslationmonth#.

From The publisher

KADYA MOLODOVSKY (1894–1975) was one of the most well-known and prolific writers of Yiddish literature in the twentieth century. Born in Bereze, a small town in what is now Belarus, educated in Poland and Russia, Molodovsky was an established writer when she came to the United States in 1935. With the exception of three years (1949–52) when she lived in Israel, she spent the rest of her life in New York. Known primarily as a poet, essayist, and editor, she published over twenty books, including poetry, plays, and four novels.

ANITA NORICH is Professor Emerita of English and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. She is author of Writing in Tongues: Yiddish Translation in the 20th Century, Discovering Exile: Yiddish and Jewish American Literature in America During the Holocaust, The Homeless Imagination in the Fiction of Israel Joshua Singer, and editor of Languages of Modern Jewish Cultures: Comparative Perspectives, Jewish Literatures and Cultures: Context and Intertext, and Gender and Text in Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literatures. She translates Yiddish literature and teaches, lectures, and publishes on a range of topics concerning modern Jewish cultures, Yiddish language and literature, Jewish American literature, and Holocaust literature.

Mel u