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The Rivals and Other Stories
A major literary figure and frequent contributor to the Yiddish-language newspaper Forverts from the 1920s to the mid-1930s, Jonah Rosenfeld was recognized during and after his lifetime as an explorer of human psychology. His work foregrounds loneliness, social anxiety, and people's frustrated longing for meaningful relationships - themes just as relevant to today's Western society as they were during his era.
The Rivals and Other Stories introduces nineteen of Rosenfeld's short stories to an English-reading audience for the first time. Unlike much of Yiddish literature that offers a sentimentalized view of the tight knit communities of early twentieth-century Jewish life, Rosenfeld's stories portray an entirely different view of pre-war Jewish families. His stories are urban, domestic dramas that probe the often painful disjunctions between men and women, parents and children, rich and poor, Jews and Gentiles, self and society. They explore eroticism and family dysfunction in narratives that were often shocking to readers at the time they were published.
Following the Modernist tradition, Rosenfeld rejected many established norms, such as religion and the assumption of absolute truth. Rather, his work is rooted in psychological realism, portraying the inner lives of alienated individuals who struggle to construct a world in which they can live. These deeply moving, empathetic stories provide a counterbalance to the prevailing idealized portrait of shtetl life and enrich our understanding of Yiddish literature.
The Rivals and Other Stories introduces nineteen of Rosenfeld's short stories to an English-reading audience for the first time. Unlike much of Yiddish literature that offers a sentimentalized view of the tight knit communities of early twentieth-century Jewish life, Rosenfeld's stories portray an entirely different view of pre-war Jewish families. His stories are urban, domestic dramas that probe the often painful disjunctions between men and women, parents and children, rich and poor, Jews and Gentiles, self and society. They explore eroticism and family dysfunction in narratives that were often shocking to readers at the time they were published.
Following the Modernist tradition, Rosenfeld rejected many established norms, such as religion and the assumption of absolute truth. Rather, his work is rooted in psychological realism, portraying the inner lives of alienated individuals who struggle to construct a world in which they can live. These deeply moving, empathetic stories provide a counterbalance to the prevailing idealized portrait of shtetl life and enrich our understanding of Yiddish literature.
- GenresShort Stories
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1940
1 person is currently reading
28 people want to read
About the author
Jonah Rosenfeld
3 booksHis father was half classroom teacher and half itinerant tutor. He studied in religious elementary school until age twelve. At thirteen, both of his parents died of cholera. He had to interrupt his studies at the Pohost yeshiva and leave for Odessa, where his brothers consigned him to an apprenticeship with a turner. For ten years he worked in this trade. This entire time, he neither read nor wrote anything.
In 1902 he wrote his first two pieces and showed them to Perets who had come to Odessa at that time. From 1914 he lived in Kovel (Kovle) and Kiev, and in 1921 he emigrated to the United States, and from that point lived in New York. He was ill the last seven years of his life with cancer.
Perets brought out Rozenfeld’s first published work, “Dos lerenyungel” (The apprentice) in the St. Petersburg journal Fraynd (Friend)—according N. Mayzil, this was done by Y. Kh. Rabnitski. From 1905 he abandoned his work as a turner and devoted himself wholly to literary pursuits. He published stories, novels, impressions, one-act plays, and dramatic sketches in: Fraynd, Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves), Moment (Moment), Yidishe velt (Jewish world), Der shtrahl (The beam [of light]), Vokhnshrift far literatur (Weekly writing for literature), and Teater-velt (Theater world), among other serials; and in America, Tsukunft (Future), Veker (Alarm), Tealit (Theater-literature), and especially Forverts (Forward) where he was for many years a regular contributor and published numerous stories and novels.
During the last six or seven years of his life, the Forverts discontinued publishing his work. The reason had to do with a major debate between Rozenfeld and the editor Ab. Cahan who argued that Rozenfeld’s stories of life in America were not at the same level as his writings about the old country. Rozenfeld held a different point of view on the quality of his final stories and did not want to adapt them to the demands of Ab. Cahan. The result was that the Forverts embraced his stories all the more, paid full honoraria for them, but did not publish them.
One of Rozenfeld’s first stories, entitled “Konkurenten” (Rivals), made a great impression and was later dramatized by the author and was produced with great success by Maurice Schwartz’s Yiddish Art Theater and on other Yiddish stages as well. His stories appeared as well in such anthologies, almanacs, and collections as: Kunst-ring, literarishe-kinstlerisher almanakh (Art ring, literary-artistic almanac) (Kharkov: Idish, 1917); Froyen, literarishe zamlung (Women, literary collection) (Moscow: Central Publ., 1928); Der arbeter in der yidisher literatur, literarishe zamlung (The worker in Yiddish literature, literary collection) (Moscow-Minsk: Central Publ., 1931); Aḥisefer (New York, 1943/1944); Hermann Hakel, Jiddische Geschichten aus aller Welt (Tübingen-Basel, 1967); Max Rosenfeld, Pushcarts and Dreamers (London, 1967).
Rozenfeld’s stories were also to be found in Yiddish-language textbooks, such as Dos yidishe vort (The Yiddish word) (Vilna, 1913), among others.
In 1902 he wrote his first two pieces and showed them to Perets who had come to Odessa at that time. From 1914 he lived in Kovel (Kovle) and Kiev, and in 1921 he emigrated to the United States, and from that point lived in New York. He was ill the last seven years of his life with cancer.
Perets brought out Rozenfeld’s first published work, “Dos lerenyungel” (The apprentice) in the St. Petersburg journal Fraynd (Friend)—according N. Mayzil, this was done by Y. Kh. Rabnitski. From 1905 he abandoned his work as a turner and devoted himself wholly to literary pursuits. He published stories, novels, impressions, one-act plays, and dramatic sketches in: Fraynd, Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves), Moment (Moment), Yidishe velt (Jewish world), Der shtrahl (The beam [of light]), Vokhnshrift far literatur (Weekly writing for literature), and Teater-velt (Theater world), among other serials; and in America, Tsukunft (Future), Veker (Alarm), Tealit (Theater-literature), and especially Forverts (Forward) where he was for many years a regular contributor and published numerous stories and novels.
During the last six or seven years of his life, the Forverts discontinued publishing his work. The reason had to do with a major debate between Rozenfeld and the editor Ab. Cahan who argued that Rozenfeld’s stories of life in America were not at the same level as his writings about the old country. Rozenfeld held a different point of view on the quality of his final stories and did not want to adapt them to the demands of Ab. Cahan. The result was that the Forverts embraced his stories all the more, paid full honoraria for them, but did not publish them.
One of Rozenfeld’s first stories, entitled “Konkurenten” (Rivals), made a great impression and was later dramatized by the author and was produced with great success by Maurice Schwartz’s Yiddish Art Theater and on other Yiddish stages as well. His stories appeared as well in such anthologies, almanacs, and collections as: Kunst-ring, literarishe-kinstlerisher almanakh (Art ring, literary-artistic almanac) (Kharkov: Idish, 1917); Froyen, literarishe zamlung (Women, literary collection) (Moscow: Central Publ., 1928); Der arbeter in der yidisher literatur, literarishe zamlung (The worker in Yiddish literature, literary collection) (Moscow-Minsk: Central Publ., 1931); Aḥisefer (New York, 1943/1944); Hermann Hakel, Jiddische Geschichten aus aller Welt (Tübingen-Basel, 1967); Max Rosenfeld, Pushcarts and Dreamers (London, 1967).
Rozenfeld’s stories were also to be found in Yiddish-language textbooks, such as Dos yidishe vort (The Yiddish word) (Vilna, 1913), among others.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 25, 2020
The story-by-story review is on my blog: https://tinyurl.com/y922h2wx
Real Rating: 4.5* of five
The Publisher Says: A major literary figure and frequent contributor to the Yiddish-language newspaper Forverts from the 1920s to the mid-1930s, Jonah Rosenfeld was recognized during and after his lifetime as an explorer of human psychology. His work foregrounds loneliness, social anxiety, and people's frustrated longing for meaningful relationships—themes just as relevant to today's Western society as they were during his era.
The Rivals and Other Stories introduces nineteen of Rosenfeld's short stories to an English-reading audience for the first time. Unlike much of Yiddish literature that offers a sentimentalized view of the tight knit communities of early twentieth-century Jewish life, Rosenfeld's stories portray an entirely different view of pre-war Jewish families. His stories are urban, domestic dramas that probe the often painful disjunctions between men and women, parents and children, rich and poor, Jews and Gentiles, self and society. They explore eroticism and family dysfunction in narratives that were often shocking to readers at the time they were published.
Following the Modernist tradition, Rosenfeld rejected many established norms, such as religion and the assumption of absolute truth. Rather, his work is rooted in psychological realism, portraying the inner lives of alienated individuals who struggle to construct a world in which they can live. These deeply moving, empathetic stories provide a counterbalance to the prevailing idealized portrait of shtetl life and enrich our understanding of Yiddish literature.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS. THANK YOU.
My Review: I'll bet good hard cash, my own United States dollars, that you've never heard of Jonah Rosenfeld. Yiddish-language literature is, to be frank, a specialist taste; a lot of it is what we used to call "schmaltzy," that is to say greased down with lots and lots of chicken fat. The implication being that Yiddish-speaking people, or Jews as we call them now, were all about Mammele and her iron grip on her boychik the melamed. (Not Rabbi, that's the Everest of stereotypical Jewish Motherhood.) Old-fashioned stuff meant to amuse the Old Country immigrant audience that New York City had in abundance while Rosenfeld was writing here (1921–1944).
Are you still here? Did you click away already? Because that's not what Jonah Rosenfeld delivers (mostly)! Lost in a haze of his largely forgotten mother tongue compounded with increasing assimilationist pressures on the now-third-generation immigrants after World War II and the Holocaust, Author Rosenfeld fell into an unjust desuetude. He was wildly popular among his direct contemporaries because he was emphatically not going to feed you pap, as Translator Miner tells us:
His stories are every bit as tough to read as the much-younger Simenon's romans durs, or Erskine Caldwell's realism by way of rage and misery. The pace of interwar societal change informs the need in these (among so many others) writers' careers to explore the rough edges that more mainstream writers don't touch, or don't grab hold of at least, in order to elicit something in a reader that she doesn't necessarily want to offer: Empathy.
Like his age cohort of writers, the Modernists like Ford Madox Ford (his near contemporary in age) and Ernest Hemingway, the joys of sentimentalism are foregone in Rosenfeld's work. He spares no thought for the warm glow of a loving, crowded hearth; I suspect the fact that he was ejected from his family, essentially sold into slavery (well, apprenticeship anyway) at thirteen, plays some part in his career-spanning unwillingness to write cheery little vignettes of The Old Country:
And please note that the audience Author Rosenfeld wrote for was not a small one: Twenty (20!) volumes of short stories; two full-length novels; a dozen plays. This was a culture that was intensely literary, and spawned a lot of theatrical legends, arguably reaching apotheosis on Broadway with 1960s shows like Fiddler on the Roof and Milk and Honey. As Author Rosenfeld's plays are as yet untranslated, I can't state this as fact, but I strongly suspect that his plays show clearly he'd've shuddered at those sentimental shows. This was a man whose first forty years were spent in places that hated him for what he was born as, a Jew. He was a deeply unhappy man. He had no illusions about the comforts of home or the love of family. He was, in short, me! This is why I enjoyed reading these stories so much. I was communing with my bygone, cynical, angry self. And it felt just fine, thanks.
***THE STORY REVIEWS ARE AVAILABLE ON MY BLOG AS OF 5 MAY 2020.***
Real Rating: 4.5* of five
The Publisher Says: A major literary figure and frequent contributor to the Yiddish-language newspaper Forverts from the 1920s to the mid-1930s, Jonah Rosenfeld was recognized during and after his lifetime as an explorer of human psychology. His work foregrounds loneliness, social anxiety, and people's frustrated longing for meaningful relationships—themes just as relevant to today's Western society as they were during his era.
The Rivals and Other Stories introduces nineteen of Rosenfeld's short stories to an English-reading audience for the first time. Unlike much of Yiddish literature that offers a sentimentalized view of the tight knit communities of early twentieth-century Jewish life, Rosenfeld's stories portray an entirely different view of pre-war Jewish families. His stories are urban, domestic dramas that probe the often painful disjunctions between men and women, parents and children, rich and poor, Jews and Gentiles, self and society. They explore eroticism and family dysfunction in narratives that were often shocking to readers at the time they were published.
Following the Modernist tradition, Rosenfeld rejected many established norms, such as religion and the assumption of absolute truth. Rather, his work is rooted in psychological realism, portraying the inner lives of alienated individuals who struggle to construct a world in which they can live. These deeply moving, empathetic stories provide a counterbalance to the prevailing idealized portrait of shtetl life and enrich our understanding of Yiddish literature.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS. THANK YOU.
My Review: I'll bet good hard cash, my own United States dollars, that you've never heard of Jonah Rosenfeld. Yiddish-language literature is, to be frank, a specialist taste; a lot of it is what we used to call "schmaltzy," that is to say greased down with lots and lots of chicken fat. The implication being that Yiddish-speaking people, or Jews as we call them now, were all about Mammele and her iron grip on her boychik the melamed. (Not Rabbi, that's the Everest of stereotypical Jewish Motherhood.) Old-fashioned stuff meant to amuse the Old Country immigrant audience that New York City had in abundance while Rosenfeld was writing here (1921–1944).
Are you still here? Did you click away already? Because that's not what Jonah Rosenfeld delivers (mostly)! Lost in a haze of his largely forgotten mother tongue compounded with increasing assimilationist pressures on the now-third-generation immigrants after World War II and the Holocaust, Author Rosenfeld fell into an unjust desuetude. He was wildly popular among his direct contemporaries because he was emphatically not going to feed you pap, as Translator Miner tells us:
In his search for psychological veracity, Rosenfeld does not flinch from the darker side of human nature. Indeed, the psyche's darkest corners are central to his writing. He is, according to Harry (Hillel) Rogoff:
"{A} painter of sadness, grief, fear and horror...a portrayer of love, passion and lust in their decadent stages, when they approach degeneracy...but the keynote of realism is never missing."
His stories are every bit as tough to read as the much-younger Simenon's romans durs, or Erskine Caldwell's realism by way of rage and misery. The pace of interwar societal change informs the need in these (among so many others) writers' careers to explore the rough edges that more mainstream writers don't touch, or don't grab hold of at least, in order to elicit something in a reader that she doesn't necessarily want to offer: Empathy.
{Rosenfeld's} writings, like those of many of his contemporaries, are set in the context of rapidly changing Jewish culture. Urbanization, emigration, increasing social mobility, and pressures to assimilate provide the locus of conflict for many of his characters, whose personal isolation "becomes a metaphor for the rupture and dislocation resulting from the breakup of traditional Jewish values." (footnoted to Schwartz, "The Trials of a Yiddish Writer in America," 196.) Even religion provides little comfort in many of Rosenfeld's stories, whose characters practice rituals devoid of meaning, Jews are caught in a no-man's-land, not truly sustained by Judaism, yet not in harmony and ease with their Gentile neighbors either.
Like his age cohort of writers, the Modernists like Ford Madox Ford (his near contemporary in age) and Ernest Hemingway, the joys of sentimentalism are foregone in Rosenfeld's work. He spares no thought for the warm glow of a loving, crowded hearth; I suspect the fact that he was ejected from his family, essentially sold into slavery (well, apprenticeship anyway) at thirteen, plays some part in his career-spanning unwillingness to write cheery little vignettes of The Old Country:
It is true {writes Translator Miner} that Rosenfeld neglects or subverts much of what was positive in Jewish life, especially in his treatment of family relationships. His domestic dramas, however, serve as a corrective to the tendency of American {Yiddish-language} readers to sentimentalize a Jewish world that no longer exists.
And please note that the audience Author Rosenfeld wrote for was not a small one: Twenty (20!) volumes of short stories; two full-length novels; a dozen plays. This was a culture that was intensely literary, and spawned a lot of theatrical legends, arguably reaching apotheosis on Broadway with 1960s shows like Fiddler on the Roof and Milk and Honey. As Author Rosenfeld's plays are as yet untranslated, I can't state this as fact, but I strongly suspect that his plays show clearly he'd've shuddered at those sentimental shows. This was a man whose first forty years were spent in places that hated him for what he was born as, a Jew. He was a deeply unhappy man. He had no illusions about the comforts of home or the love of family. He was, in short, me! This is why I enjoyed reading these stories so much. I was communing with my bygone, cynical, angry self. And it felt just fine, thanks.
***THE STORY REVIEWS ARE AVAILABLE ON MY BLOG AS OF 5 MAY 2020.***
June 3, 2022
Read as part of the Yiddish Book Center’s 2022 book club.
Some good slice of life stories and some that were dull. Some stories were interesting and a couple disturbing. Overall a solid book with many stories lasting only a few pages, making it easy and accessible to readers.
Some good slice of life stories and some that were dull. Some stories were interesting and a couple disturbing. Overall a solid book with many stories lasting only a few pages, making it easy and accessible to readers.
May 13, 2020
Seriously, this is one of the finest collections of short stories I've read in a long, long time.
Not only is it enjoyable, entertaining, and enlightening: the plots are extraordinarily simple, yet they are driven by characterisation, and the characters here are dynamic, and plausibly so. The stories remind me, in their engaging and sometimes eccentric characters, of Karl Emil Franzos who also comes from that intellectually-fertile patch of Central-Eastern Europe, Galicia.
But, you know, it's the style of the language here that seems to be the big draw for me, as I suppose it always is with great literature. The sparse concision of thee language, especially how it manages to suggest so very much--by way of ideas, thoughts, the general condition of humanity--is testament to the work of translator, Rachel Mines.
I love these stories.
Not only is it enjoyable, entertaining, and enlightening: the plots are extraordinarily simple, yet they are driven by characterisation, and the characters here are dynamic, and plausibly so. The stories remind me, in their engaging and sometimes eccentric characters, of Karl Emil Franzos who also comes from that intellectually-fertile patch of Central-Eastern Europe, Galicia.
But, you know, it's the style of the language here that seems to be the big draw for me, as I suppose it always is with great literature. The sparse concision of thee language, especially how it manages to suggest so very much--by way of ideas, thoughts, the general condition of humanity--is testament to the work of translator, Rachel Mines.
I love these stories.
Read
May 7, 2020The Rivals is an apt title for this collection. There are triangles and quadrangles whose conflicts Rosenfeld tracks with both compassion and good humour. Freud lurks in the background, and never dominates. But the main pleasure for me was his portrayal of the interior debates that many of the characters carry on with Kafkaesque obsessiveness. The final story, the only one in which Rosenfeld portrays himself, is a hilarious version of this theme, which here hinges around the comic complexities that flow from complex identities. Our hero meets a man who looks like a shegetz, speaks fluent Yiddish and is introduced as Simkha Cohen, but whose real name is Semyon Katshka, and these confusions of name come to life when the men become rivals for the hand of a young woman.
March 5, 2021
I strongly recommend this collection of short stories if you are interested in immigration or psychology -- the dynamics of family relations, the role of women, male/female relationships, and, generally, themes of alienation and isolation among individuals and groups. Though these stories were written mostly in the 1910s and 1920s, they often seem very contemporary, and so do the themes undertaken: child abuse, abortion, suicide, etc., though the stories are not in any way gruesome. The writing is direct, straightforward, and clear in current, colloquial English, which has to be a tribute to the translator. Remember that old advertisement for rye bread -- 'you don't have to be Jewish to like it.'
September 17, 2020
The stories in this book are weird and dark, but also beautiful and so human. They're populated with people who can be horrible and abusive, but you can't help but feel for them. At the same time, stories can be really funny. Even when they're disturbing. So worth reading!
June 8, 2022
Amazing stories, wonderful translation.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews