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The Penguin Books of Short Stories
The Penguin Book of Jewish Short Stories
These stories, deeply rooted in Jewish life and consciousness, reflect authentic, often funny, images of Jewish people in the modern world. Many literary figures are featured including I.L. Peretz, S.Y. Agnon, Saul Bellow, Isaac Badel and Muriel Spark.
Contents:
The Golem ; Bontsha the silent / I.L. Peretz --
Hodel / Sholom Aleichem --
White Chalah ; Smoke / Lamed Shapiro --
The recluse / Abraham Reisen --
Friendship ; First kiss / S.Y. Agnon --
The story of my dovecot ; The journey / Isaac Babel --
A friend of Kafka / Isaac Bashevis Singer --
Fanya / Emanuel Litvinoff --
Badenheim 1939 / Aharon Appelfeld --
The Zulu and the Zeide / Dan Jacobson --
The conversion of the Jews / Philip Roth --
The old system / Saul Bellow --
The pagan Rabbi / Cunthis Ozick --
Setting the world to rights / Amos Oz --
Man in the drawer / Bernard Malamud --
The gentile Jewesses / Muriel Spark.
Contents:
The Golem ; Bontsha the silent / I.L. Peretz --
Hodel / Sholom Aleichem --
White Chalah ; Smoke / Lamed Shapiro --
The recluse / Abraham Reisen --
Friendship ; First kiss / S.Y. Agnon --
The story of my dovecot ; The journey / Isaac Babel --
A friend of Kafka / Isaac Bashevis Singer --
Fanya / Emanuel Litvinoff --
Badenheim 1939 / Aharon Appelfeld --
The Zulu and the Zeide / Dan Jacobson --
The conversion of the Jews / Philip Roth --
The old system / Saul Bellow --
The pagan Rabbi / Cunthis Ozick --
Setting the world to rights / Amos Oz --
Man in the drawer / Bernard Malamud --
The gentile Jewesses / Muriel Spark.
352 pages, Paperback
First published June 28, 1979
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 23, 2020
42 SHORT STORIES IN 42 DAYS*
DAY 14: The Golem, by I.L. Peretz
★★★
The story of the Golem of Prague, retold as a sociopolitical parable.
DAY 7: The Gentile Jewess, by Muriel Spark
★
This brief family memoir is technically brilliant but not interesting at all.
*The rules:
– Read one short story a day, every day for six weeks
– Read no more than one story by the same author within any 14-day period
– Deliberately include authors I wouldn't usually read
– Review each story in one sentence or less
Any fresh reading suggestions/recommendations will be gratefully received 📚
DAY 14: The Golem, by I.L. Peretz
★★★
The story of the Golem of Prague, retold as a sociopolitical parable.
DAY 7: The Gentile Jewess, by Muriel Spark
★
This brief family memoir is technically brilliant but not interesting at all.
*The rules:
– Read one short story a day, every day for six weeks
– Read no more than one story by the same author within any 14-day period
– Deliberately include authors I wouldn't usually read
– Review each story in one sentence or less
Any fresh reading suggestions/recommendations will be gratefully received 📚
October 16, 2013
What can I say? I can't believe I own this book, not because it is a collection edition or it's rare to be found, but simply because I live in Lebanon and unfortunately we live at a time where Jewish / Israeli cultural output is not possible to be found here. Even the distinction between Jewish and Israeli is no longer made here. I was able to get this at an English bookstore in Berlin, St. George's English Bookshop. I was also lucky to buy another Hebrew anthology: 8 Great Hebrew Short Novels. Months later, somebody in Lebanon was bold enough to sell Bernard Malamud's The Fixer (in French though, L'Homme de Kiev) and I managed to snag that one too. I read them all, and hope to be posting my reviews of them quite soon.
This book features the works of 16 Jewish authors, from I L Peretz to Muriel Spark, one short story per author except for the 19th century writers who have two stories included. It's quite small considering the number of authors, at around 350 pages.
I started reading it expecting some Jewish humor; there is a bit of that with stories like Sholom Aleichem's Hodel, Isaac Bashevis Singer's A Friend of Kafka, even The Conversion of the Jews by Philip Roth. That said, I was quite shocked with some of the stories and the harrowing details they include, having forgotten at one point the bloody history itself of the Jews especially in Eastern Europe.
The first of those was White Chalah by Lamed Shapiro. A story of such graphical violence that I had to escape online, researching it to make sure I was reading it correctly. This is how it opens:
One day a neighbor broke the leg of a stray dog with a heavy stone, and when Vasil saw the sharp edge of the bone piercing the skin he cried. The tears streamed from his eyes, his mouth, and his nose; the towhead on his short neck shrank deeper between his shoulders; his entire face became distorted and shriveled, and he did not utter a sound. He was then about seven years old.
I thought one story about the pogroms should be enough for such a small book, but as brutal as White Chalah is, I found The Story of My Dovecot by Isaac Babel Singer more gripping and yet more heartfelt. It is longer, and so allows a bit of background to filter through. It is written in the first person narrative from the viewpoint of a boy competing for admission to middle school, and on what should have been a normal day, comes face to face (literally) with the pogroms of 1905. This feeling of safety being robbed from us is an experience I should never forget as our own Lebanese history, during the civil war, is riddled with.
Naturally, in such times, the synagogue offers both worldly and spiritual safety, and throughout the stories one always notices the omnipresence of the synagogue, of its warmth and of the sense of familiarity it offers to the Jews of the Eastern European countries.
Another story that echoed quite vividly with our own, recent history, is Badenheim 1939 by Aharon Appelfeld.
Without spoiling the rest of the story, I wonder whether Appelfeld wasn't harsh on the Jews who went on with their lives not expecting or probably not giving due attention to the changes the Nazis started enforcing on their living conditions. The parallels that Badenheim 1939 presents with our own history are remarkable. In July 2006, we also were going on with our regular lives, expecting a flood of tourists for the months of July and August and barely waking up form the euphoria of the end of the World Cup of 2006, we come face to face with the shocking news that Israel is bombing the airport to retaliate for an attack perpetrated by Hizbollah on the southern border with Israel. Gradually, the dream (as it is for every Lebanese) of a busy summer start crumbling, and slowly we find ourselves under an aerial and naval embargo, with half the country in war against Israel and the other half stuck in queues trying to get gas for their cars and food from supermarkets. Of course the proportion between World War 2 and the July War is negligible and the July War only lasted 33 days, but it felt that all this was too real, and too vivid in my mind when I was going through Badenheim 1939.
To conclude, this anthology is one to be considered as an introduction to Jewish literature, and it presents such a wide array of Jewish authors - it even features a South African Jewish writer I have never heard of - that the reader is sure to select one author for further consideration. It's a pleasant read and because the editor, Emanuel Litvinoff wonders what can be considered Jewish writing and who can be considered a Jewish writer, the reader gets the chance of enjoying the variations of Jewish writing across periods and locations as well.
Other stories I would recommend are: Setting the World to Rights by Amos Oz about the disappointment or the realities of the Kibbutz life, a theme that is partially reconsidered in The Hill of Evil Counsel (to be reviewed soon), The Conversion of the Jews by Philip Roth, about the blindly gulped religious indoctrination by religious institutions, and The Man in the Drawer, by Bernard Malamud (Malamud, who's book The Fixer, L'Homme de Kiev, I will be reviewing soon as well). I think the latter story is directly inspired from Philip Roth's smuggling of Eastern European literature in the mid 70s during Communism.
This book features the works of 16 Jewish authors, from I L Peretz to Muriel Spark, one short story per author except for the 19th century writers who have two stories included. It's quite small considering the number of authors, at around 350 pages.
I started reading it expecting some Jewish humor; there is a bit of that with stories like Sholom Aleichem's Hodel, Isaac Bashevis Singer's A Friend of Kafka, even The Conversion of the Jews by Philip Roth. That said, I was quite shocked with some of the stories and the harrowing details they include, having forgotten at one point the bloody history itself of the Jews especially in Eastern Europe.
The first of those was White Chalah by Lamed Shapiro. A story of such graphical violence that I had to escape online, researching it to make sure I was reading it correctly. This is how it opens:
One day a neighbor broke the leg of a stray dog with a heavy stone, and when Vasil saw the sharp edge of the bone piercing the skin he cried. The tears streamed from his eyes, his mouth, and his nose; the towhead on his short neck shrank deeper between his shoulders; his entire face became distorted and shriveled, and he did not utter a sound. He was then about seven years old.
I thought one story about the pogroms should be enough for such a small book, but as brutal as White Chalah is, I found The Story of My Dovecot by Isaac Babel Singer more gripping and yet more heartfelt. It is longer, and so allows a bit of background to filter through. It is written in the first person narrative from the viewpoint of a boy competing for admission to middle school, and on what should have been a normal day, comes face to face (literally) with the pogroms of 1905. This feeling of safety being robbed from us is an experience I should never forget as our own Lebanese history, during the civil war, is riddled with.
Naturally, in such times, the synagogue offers both worldly and spiritual safety, and throughout the stories one always notices the omnipresence of the synagogue, of its warmth and of the sense of familiarity it offers to the Jews of the Eastern European countries.
Another story that echoed quite vividly with our own, recent history, is Badenheim 1939 by Aharon Appelfeld.
Without spoiling the rest of the story, I wonder whether Appelfeld wasn't harsh on the Jews who went on with their lives not expecting or probably not giving due attention to the changes the Nazis started enforcing on their living conditions. The parallels that Badenheim 1939 presents with our own history are remarkable. In July 2006, we also were going on with our regular lives, expecting a flood of tourists for the months of July and August and barely waking up form the euphoria of the end of the World Cup of 2006, we come face to face with the shocking news that Israel is bombing the airport to retaliate for an attack perpetrated by Hizbollah on the southern border with Israel. Gradually, the dream (as it is for every Lebanese) of a busy summer start crumbling, and slowly we find ourselves under an aerial and naval embargo, with half the country in war against Israel and the other half stuck in queues trying to get gas for their cars and food from supermarkets. Of course the proportion between World War 2 and the July War is negligible and the July War only lasted 33 days, but it felt that all this was too real, and too vivid in my mind when I was going through Badenheim 1939.
To conclude, this anthology is one to be considered as an introduction to Jewish literature, and it presents such a wide array of Jewish authors - it even features a South African Jewish writer I have never heard of - that the reader is sure to select one author for further consideration. It's a pleasant read and because the editor, Emanuel Litvinoff wonders what can be considered Jewish writing and who can be considered a Jewish writer, the reader gets the chance of enjoying the variations of Jewish writing across periods and locations as well.
Other stories I would recommend are: Setting the World to Rights by Amos Oz about the disappointment or the realities of the Kibbutz life, a theme that is partially reconsidered in The Hill of Evil Counsel (to be reviewed soon), The Conversion of the Jews by Philip Roth, about the blindly gulped religious indoctrination by religious institutions, and The Man in the Drawer, by Bernard Malamud (Malamud, who's book The Fixer, L'Homme de Kiev, I will be reviewing soon as well). I think the latter story is directly inspired from Philip Roth's smuggling of Eastern European literature in the mid 70s during Communism.
March 20, 2019
Sen hiçbir zaman SESSİZ KALMAYA ihtiyacın olmadığını, bağırabileceğini ve ÇIĞLIKLARININ DÜNYAYI TERSYÜZ EDEBİLECEĞİNİ, içinde yatan GÜCÜN BÜYÜKLÜĞÜNÜ anlamadın.
Saklayanları değil, yaptığını, ettiğini ANLATAN insanları seviyorum; nerede GİZLİLİK orada HİNLİK.
PARA bir KIYMET ifade ettiği sürece bu dünyada ADALETTEN söz edilemez.
Kuluçkasından ÖRDEK yavruları çıkan zavallı TAVUK için üzgünüm ama salt o gıdaklayaduruyor diye ördek yavruları YÜZMEKTEN vaz mı geçsin?
Yakın çevredeki yakılıp yıkılan 10 Yahudi kasabası ve bir kent (Beloptiazha) YERYÜZÜNDEN SİLİNDİ, dumanlar arasına gömüldü ve 30.000 Yahudinin sığınmaya çalıştığı Vinokur ORMANI açık alanda yakılan bir şenlik ateşi gibi YANDI. Ormandan üç gün boyunca yükselen zehirli gazlar gibi ACI ÇIĞLIKLARI da yükselip bütün ülkeye yayıldı. Dar ve akıntılı Sinedovka NEHRİ insan bedenleriyle TIKANIP etraftaki tarlalara taştı.
Bir İKTİDARSIZIN iyi olduğu kadar İYİYİM. Bu AŞIRI İNCELMİŞ tat duyusunun gelişmesiyle başlar; aç birisine havyar veya acıbadem kurabiyeleri şart değildir. Ben artık hiçbir KADININ ÇEKİCİ OLMADIĞINI düşünüyorum; hiçbir KUSUR gözümden kaçmıyor (Kafka gibi). İktidarsızlık budur, boya ve parfüm artık beni cezbetmiyor.
"Eğer İncil 18 ciltten oluşsaydı, şimdiye kadar çoktan unutulurdu; hiçbir roman 'Savaş ve Barış'tan uzun olmamalıdır."
Saklayanları değil, yaptığını, ettiğini ANLATAN insanları seviyorum; nerede GİZLİLİK orada HİNLİK.
PARA bir KIYMET ifade ettiği sürece bu dünyada ADALETTEN söz edilemez.
Kuluçkasından ÖRDEK yavruları çıkan zavallı TAVUK için üzgünüm ama salt o gıdaklayaduruyor diye ördek yavruları YÜZMEKTEN vaz mı geçsin?
Yakın çevredeki yakılıp yıkılan 10 Yahudi kasabası ve bir kent (Beloptiazha) YERYÜZÜNDEN SİLİNDİ, dumanlar arasına gömüldü ve 30.000 Yahudinin sığınmaya çalıştığı Vinokur ORMANI açık alanda yakılan bir şenlik ateşi gibi YANDI. Ormandan üç gün boyunca yükselen zehirli gazlar gibi ACI ÇIĞLIKLARI da yükselip bütün ülkeye yayıldı. Dar ve akıntılı Sinedovka NEHRİ insan bedenleriyle TIKANIP etraftaki tarlalara taştı.
Bir İKTİDARSIZIN iyi olduğu kadar İYİYİM. Bu AŞIRI İNCELMİŞ tat duyusunun gelişmesiyle başlar; aç birisine havyar veya acıbadem kurabiyeleri şart değildir. Ben artık hiçbir KADININ ÇEKİCİ OLMADIĞINI düşünüyorum; hiçbir KUSUR gözümden kaçmıyor (Kafka gibi). İktidarsızlık budur, boya ve parfüm artık beni cezbetmiyor.
"Eğer İncil 18 ciltten oluşsaydı, şimdiye kadar çoktan unutulurdu; hiçbir roman 'Savaş ve Barış'tan uzun olmamalıdır."
December 17, 2023
a profound and insightful foray into a culture possibly more deeply rooted than any other. the literary tradition seen evolving over time in this collection from the pogroms to post-wwii is dynamic and of the highest caliber.
November 30, 2025
Lots of great stories among the 20 in this anthology. Favorites? Saul Bellow’s “The Old System,” I.L. Peretz’s “Bontsha the Silent,” Muriel Sparks’ “The Gentle jewesses” and Emanuel Litvinoff’s “Fanya” to name a few. Bellow’s writing was the best included (imho)
April 15, 2015
interesting collection
some make you laugh, others are really uncomfortable [ holocaust/ discrimination]
a few familiar authors and some that i am glad to know now.
some make you laugh, others are really uncomfortable [ holocaust/ discrimination]
a few familiar authors and some that i am glad to know now.
June 7, 2025
I found this short story collection at my family's home in my basement room which has mainly turned into storage for our nostalgia. I believe it is something that my younger sister was assigned during her undergraduate years at Harvard College, but it could have been from her graduate studies at Princeton University too.
Either way, I have always enjoyed a good short story, and Jewish authors have formed a foundation of my literary experience, so it seemed to make sense that I read this. It is comprised of stories by sixteen Jewish authors whose origin ranges from Eastern Europe (esp. Poland + Ukraine) & Russia (in the case of the earlier writers like Peretz, Aleichem, Shapiro, Reisen, Agnon, & Babel), to South Africa, Canada, & the U.S. (in the case of Jacobson, Bellow, & Roth). While the stories are as varied as stories can be, they mostly contain similar themes of tradition, displacement, and generational silence borne from trauma.
Overall, I would recommend this collection to anyone interested in short stories. I especially enjoyed the following works: Bontsha the Silent by I.L. Peretz; Smoke by Lamed Shapiro; The Story of My Dovecot and The Journey by Isaac Babel; A Friend of Kafka by Isaac Bashevis Singer; Fanya by Emanuel Litvinoff; The Zulu & the Zeide by Dan Jacobson; The Conversion of the Jews by Philip Roth; Setting the World to Rights by Amos Oz; and Man in the Drawer by Benjamin Malamud.
Themes of suicide came up in both Cynthia Ozick's 'The Pagan Rabbi' and Amos Oz's 'Setting the World to Rights' wherein protagonists hanged themselves by a tree. Kafka-esque situations arose in both Appelfeld's 'Badenheim' & Malamud's 'Man in the Drawer', the latter also reminding me of Saul Bellow's story 'The Gonzaga Manuscripts' (not contained in this collection) for the plot around smuggling writing out of a fascist nation.
I found this to be a great introduction to some of the most well known short format works of these authors, many of whom I had only previously heard of.
Either way, I have always enjoyed a good short story, and Jewish authors have formed a foundation of my literary experience, so it seemed to make sense that I read this. It is comprised of stories by sixteen Jewish authors whose origin ranges from Eastern Europe (esp. Poland + Ukraine) & Russia (in the case of the earlier writers like Peretz, Aleichem, Shapiro, Reisen, Agnon, & Babel), to South Africa, Canada, & the U.S. (in the case of Jacobson, Bellow, & Roth). While the stories are as varied as stories can be, they mostly contain similar themes of tradition, displacement, and generational silence borne from trauma.
Overall, I would recommend this collection to anyone interested in short stories. I especially enjoyed the following works: Bontsha the Silent by I.L. Peretz; Smoke by Lamed Shapiro; The Story of My Dovecot and The Journey by Isaac Babel; A Friend of Kafka by Isaac Bashevis Singer; Fanya by Emanuel Litvinoff; The Zulu & the Zeide by Dan Jacobson; The Conversion of the Jews by Philip Roth; Setting the World to Rights by Amos Oz; and Man in the Drawer by Benjamin Malamud.
Themes of suicide came up in both Cynthia Ozick's 'The Pagan Rabbi' and Amos Oz's 'Setting the World to Rights' wherein protagonists hanged themselves by a tree. Kafka-esque situations arose in both Appelfeld's 'Badenheim' & Malamud's 'Man in the Drawer', the latter also reminding me of Saul Bellow's story 'The Gonzaga Manuscripts' (not contained in this collection) for the plot around smuggling writing out of a fascist nation.
I found this to be a great introduction to some of the most well known short format works of these authors, many of whom I had only previously heard of.
January 28, 2018
Some stories were quite interesting, some less so, but the collection is quite varied in themes and styles so anyone can find something to their liking and perhaps explore further some author's writings. Also, I had a chance at last to read something of Babel's.
September 10, 2017
Short stories by Jewish authors, some contemporary such as Philip Roth. A few of the stories were good, but honestly I was a little disappointed.
January 19, 2022
favorite stories:
„hodel“ by sholem aleichem, both of the ones by isaac babel, „gentile jewesses“ by muriel spark
„hodel“ by sholem aleichem, both of the ones by isaac babel, „gentile jewesses“ by muriel spark
September 6, 2024
Nice selection of a range of Jewish writers. This is a good introduction to the basic themes found in modern Jewish literature.
October 14, 2014
Some really good stories in this collection though the older ones I found slightly more of a challenge but all were interesting. The pieces from Singer, Roth and Malamud are, as you would expect, the highlights of this collection which covers a significant span both geographically and chronologically. Recommended for anyone with an interest in short stories.
March 13, 2023
Phew, tough. Tough and bitter stories. Hard to love 😮💨
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews