Newburyport Public Library

No star too beautiful, Yiddish stories from 1382 to the present, compiled and translated by Joachim Neugroschel

eng

no index present

non fiction

No star too beautiful

49618829

compiled and translated by Joachim Neugroschel

Yiddish stories from 1382 to the present

[The editor] has edited and translated this historic survey of Yiddish stories. Short stories, excerpts from novels, and some verse portray the great questions of Jewish life through the centuries: religion, assimilation, Zionism, poverty, social relationships, and anti-Semitism. The complex relationship between Yiddish and Hebrew (many of the authors wrote in both languages) is shown. [He] divides the selections chronologically into four periods: Old Yiddish, Hasidim and Anti-Hasidim, Haskala (the Jewish Enlightenment), and Modernism. His introductions and headnotes are very helpful in placing the works. All the great names of Yiddish are here: Yakov ben Yitskhov Ashkenazi, Glikl of Hamelin, Rabbi Nakhman of Brasley, Mendele Moykher-Sforim, Yitsik Leybesh Peretz, S. Ansky, Sholom Aleichem, H. Leivick, Sholem Asch, Y.Y. Singer, Der Nister, and, of course, Isaac Bashevis Singer. Among the lesser-known writers, David Bergelson's "The Deaf Man" is a powerful and tragic tale. Hersh Dovid Nomberg's "In the Mountains" is a starkly romantic story of three people, while Chava Rosenfarb's "Bociany" is a poignant and touching story of what was. Women authors are also generously represented. Poor students, poor fools, and suffering humanity-here is a world wholly gone, living only in the imagination. Recommended for Jewish literature and studies collections. -Library Journal

Old Yiddish period, 1382 to the mid-eighteenth century -- Hasidism and anti-Hasidism, mysticism and moralism, eighteenth and early nineteenth century -- Haskala (Jewish enlightenment), nineteenth century -- Nineteenth century to the present