מסעות בנימין השלישי

by Mendele Mocher Sforim, מנדלי מוכר ספרים, יהודה לודוויג שוורין (Illustrator)

The innocent and idealistic Benjamin and his hardheaded friend Senderel have humorous escapades as they search for the legendary Ten Tribes

Genres: Jewish, Classics, Fiction, 19th Century, Judaism

137 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1878

About the author

Mendele Mocher Sforim (Yiddish: מענדעלע מוכר ספֿרים‎, Hebrew: מנדלי מוכר ספרים‎‎, also known as Moykher, Sfarim; lit. "Mendele the book peddler"), born Sholem Yankev Abramovich (Yiddish: שלום יעקב אַבראַמאָװיטש‎, Russian: Соломон Моисеевич Абрамович – Solomon Moiseyevich Abramovich) or S. J. Abramowitch, was a Jewish author and one of the founders of modern Yiddish and Hebrew literature.

Reviews

[Anina e gambette di pollo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Autore: bielorusso (1833-1917). Romanzo.


Sholem Yankev Abramowitsch era il vero nome dello scrittore e Mendele Moicher Sfurim lo pseudonimo.
Mendele Moicher Sfurim significa Mendele il venditore di libri, in omaggio ad una figura tipica del mondo ebraico cioè l’uomo che girava per i vari shtetl (non ne conosco il plurale) vendendo libri.

Ancora una volta mi rendo conto di com’è piccolo il mondo della letteratura. Riferimenti, richiami, radici comuni. Una magica ragnatela.
Forse più comune nel passato, quando ogni scrittore era anche un grande lettore.
Dovrei rileggere il racconto di Zweig e magari aggiungere un’ulteriore chiave di lettura alla storia di Mendel dei libri.
Nessuno ha più percorso le strade polverose dell’Est per portare libri alla gente più umile. Forse è per quello che la sola a provare pietà è la misera pulitrice di cessi.

L’ambizione di Sholem era quella di scrivere in yiddish per poter raccontare del popolo minuto ed essere letto anche da esso. L’ebraico era lingua conosciuta a pochi.
L’ambizione di tutti coloro che iniziarono a scrivere in volgare lasciando il latino alla scienza e alla filosofia.

Beniamino, appassionato lettore di racconti di viaggio (pochi e famosi erano gli ebrei che avevano viaggiato e ne avevano scritto), fan di Alessandro Magno, parte dal suo villaggio insieme a Senderl per raggiungere luoghi sconosciuti.
Non esattamente un don Chisciotte, anzi. E’ timoroso, spesso spaventato. Il suo compagno può essere pragmatico come Sancho, ma è anche un’anima semplice sempre accondiscendente.
Ma quei libri hanno messo un seme nel cuore di Beniamino: uscire dallo shtetl e conoscere il mondo.
Visto che non ha la più pallida idea della geografia, i suoi percorsi avvengono in un mondo ristretto e popolato di villaggi ebrei ad un tiro di schioppo da casa, tutto tra le mille miserie degli ebrei polacchi. Ma la sua mente riesce a trasformare la realtà reinterpretandola alla luce delle tradizioni ebraiche. La vera gabbia da cui non si esce. E in fondo ciò gli è sufficiente.

10.01.2018

N.B. edizione EDB del 2017

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

The sages of Glupsk, known for their ingenuity in making mountains out of molehills, chasing wild geese and locating mares' nests, have, by drawing sundry inferences, by reading between the lines, shown that the legend is not without a considerable amount of truth.

Discovered this at a sale this afternoon, a Don Quixote of the shtetl. Apparently the author grew bored and abandoned it, though he did translate it from Hebrew to Yiddish.

Several laugh out loud moments, mostly of the bumpkins being tormented by spouses variety. Take my wife--please. Two would be prophets heed the call of itchy feet and hit the road braving bedbugs, amorous calves and the machinations of conspirator.

[Peter Weissman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Yiddish homage, you might say, to the Adventures of Don Quixote. The author, among the first Yiddish writers, chose the pseudonym "Mendele the Bookseller," birth name Jakov Abramovich, because he was a poor man--as most Jews living the in the Pale of Settlement in Russia in the 19th century were--who had to peddle himself. I know of him because he's a relative, a great- or great-great-uncle, who, despite his old fashioned style of telling a tale, has a modern flare for satire.

[Boris · Rating 3 out of 5]

First Sentence:"All my days until my great journey, that is- I have lived in Tuneyadevka."

Sholom Aleichem, my favorite Yiddish writer called Mendele Mocher Seforim his grandfather, and therefore the grandfather of yiddish literature.
The name means "book seller".
This book is about Benjamin (the Jewish Don Quixote) and Senderel (his Sancho Panza) as they leave Tuneyadevka to follew the path of Alexander of Macedon and discover the Red Jews (the ten lost tribes) in the Turkish Empire. They abandon their wives and sneak out of town with no money: "Money? What money? You don't expect to buy a new wardrobe."
and no food: "You're not expecting to carry a field kitchen are you?"
"As long as there are houses on the road we can beg from door to door. What do all the other jews do? Some go begging today and others will beg on the morrow. It's an ancient Jewish custom."

Mendele himself was a member of a troupe of beggars for a while so he probably knew how it went.

Of course, Benjamin and Senderel have some scrapes and close calls. They get invited to a bath house, and find themselves sold as conscripts in the Russian army. They try to escape and are of course caught.
At their trial they defend themselves by saying: "We don't know a thing about waging war, that we never did know, and never want to know."
The Russians, recognizing their worthlessness as soldiers let them go.
Last Sentences: "Benjamin made a low bow as he took his departure.
Senderel, loyal as ever to his leader, marched off after him."

[Max Heimowitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note: I read two different versions than the one listed on Goodreads, as they were PDFs from my professor, both excerpts from larger collections.

This story is a trip. Best way to describe it. It's a Yiddish spoof of Don Quixote, full of insanity, delusion, wacky choices, weird town names. It's entertaining, but it's hiding something deeper under its murky surface.

[Shira Nomi]

שנון ועצוב ויפה

[Izzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Brief Travels of Benyamin the third

There are 14 short chapters, as well as an introduction and an Epilogue by the Book Seller. The genesis of Benyamin’s urge to wander, his travelling companion, and his adventures are written in an amazing style that Hillel Halkin does his best to capture in translation.


I loved the way the Ben and Dame Sendrel get themselves courtmarialed out of the Czrist Army, having failed to escape at night by going AWOL. So tongue in cheek!

That there was a Benjamin of Tudela in the 12th century whose travels antedated Marco Polo as well Ben. III, may have been much better known in 1878 when this satiric set of tales appeared than today; in fact there are lots of allusions to commonplace Jewish life and customs that have long been assimilated away since American Jews moved far far away from the Lower East Side (not to mention from Eastern Europe.)

But there are shades of First Avenue Theater if not Broadway; and Sholem Aleikhem is to my mind rather indebted to his Zayde for inspiration for some of his settings and characters…..

What a great way to become more familiar with Roots as well as this author.cc


It will be interesting to reread Hillel Halkin’s translation in the original Yiddish; the little vowel marks under some of the consonants are amusing, and don’t interfere too much… the amazing flow of similar verbs in the translation, where I checked, have similar Yiddish constructions which to me sound even better.
I loved the way the Ben and Dame Sendrel get themselves courtmarialed out of the Czrist Army, having failed to escape at night by going AWOL. So tongue in cheek!

[Noa Sandovsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

קריאה מרתקת. מסעות בנימין השלישי הפותח את הספר היה משעשע ומלא ביקורת על הקהילה היהודית באוקראינה. כאשר ההערות לאורך הספר מאפשרות הבנה עמוקה יותר של הכתוב. דמותו של מנדלי שובת לב במידה מסוימת. ניתן ללמוד מכל סיפור המופיע בספר ובעיקר להבין את שורשי הספרות העברית. ללא ספק היה זה מסע מרתק בנבכי העברית המתפתחת ובתפיסותיו של מנדלי. אחרית הדבר מעירה את הקריאה ומוסיפה לספר.

[Eithan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the book is well written it's a very old Hebrew and since i'm not familiar with how they spoke at the time i had to guess many times if this is how they talked or is the author making fun of a situation. I think that if this book is studied in a class or some other way where you can have guide lines it'll be much better