A Treasury of Yiddish Stories

by Irving Howe (Editor), Eliezer Greenberg (Editor)

Fifty-two Yiddish short stories describe life in the shetl and other aspects of the Jewish experience, and include works produced by Jewish writers during the last two centuries.

Genres: Jewish, Judaism, Fiction, Short Stories, Judaica

688 pages, Paperback

First published January 19, 1965

About the author

Irving Howe was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Reviews

[David]

The introduction of this book was an extremely helpful primer about Yiddish Literature and provided both context and appreciation to kick off a pretty deep dive into a big variety of Yiddish stories. The book put the treasure in treasury for me because it provided so much lively insight into the lives of Eastern European Jews and the kinds of challenges of an oppressed community. The stories that stuck out the most for me were the humorous stories:

On Account of a Hat by Shalom Aleichem - A story about a guy who tries to get people to take him more seriously by stealing and wearing an official cap, but everyone just thinks he is a fool.
Competitors by Jonah Rosenfeld- A story about a dead beat dad who competes with his daughter for attention and love from his wife who holds the household together.
If Not Higher by I.L. Peretz- not all that humorous but a very sweet message about how quietly helping the less fortunate is the path to repentance and serving G-d.
Or some of the proverbs at the end: "Sleep faster, we need the pillows." "When a poor man eats chicken, one of them is sick."

In addition, taken as a whole the stories also painted a picture of a community changing with circumstances, from shtetl and pogrom small town living, to more urban European, to the chilling and fear around World War II, to the opportunity and struggle in the United States, to the idealism of Zionism. Similarly the stories stylistically run around some with allegories, didactic lessons, humor, a lot of tongue-in-cheek self-pity, rebellion, modernist explorations of feelings, family dynamics, crabs-in-a-barrel hierarchy and more.

The introduction had an apologetic tone because the Yiddish literature stylistically never really hit the epitome of any literature it was emulating and as I read I did see that many stories had abrupt endings or had awkward pacing but it also gave a sense of authenticity to the experience - the authors were recording their unique lives, interests, and values that can deepen my own Jewishness. I even began to imagine re-making some of these stories in a modern context since some community dynamics live on in slightly different ways. In addition, every single author featured were men so clearly there is an entire 50% of experience that is not well accounted.

[Nrosenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing collection of Yiddish short stories. Definitely check out "The Calf" by Mendele Mocher Sforim, "Ne'ilah in Gehenna," "Bontsha the Silent," and "If Not Higher" by I L Peretz. "White Chalah" by Lamed Shapiro and "Repentance" by I J Singer are also highlights for me.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to like these stories, but they are all so damn depressing!

[lifeisjustablurblog]

Read ‘On Account of a Hat’

[Jake Cooper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read ~half the 50+ stories, and only 1 called to me (Sholem Aleichem's The Search). Today, Yiddish interest is associated with secularism; these stories, naturally, aren't.

[Elwood D Pennypacker]

I learned a couple of things: some people’s love for a farm animal is real L O V E. And when in doubt, wish someone that they should get cholera.