On the Landing: Stories by Yenta Mash

by Yenta Mash, Jessica Kirzane (Afterword), Ellen Cassedy (Translator)

In these sixteen stories, available in English for the first time, prize-winning author Yenta Mash traces an arc across continents, across upheavals and regime changes, and across the phases of a woman's life. Mash's protagonists are often in transit, poised "on the landing" on their way to or from somewhere else. In imaginative, poignant, and relentlessly honest prose, translated from the Yiddish by Ellen Cassedy, Mash documents the lost world of Jewish Bessarabia, the texture of daily life behind the Iron Curtain in Soviet Moldova, and the challenges of assimilation in Israel. On the Landing opens by inviting us to join a woman making her way through her ruined hometown, recalling the colorful customs of yesteryear—and the night when everything changed. We then travel into the Soviet gulag, accompanying women prisoners into the fearsome forests of Siberia. In postwar Soviet Moldova, we see how the Jewish community rebuilds itself. On the move once more, we join refugees struggling to find their place in Israel. Finally, a late-life romance brings a blossoming of joy. Drawing on a lifetime of repeated uprooting, Mash offers an intimate perch from which to explore little-known corners of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. A master chronicler of exile, she makes a major contribution to the literature of immigration and resilience, adding her voice to those of Jhumpa Lahiri, W. G. Sebald, André Aciman, and Viet Thanh Nguyen. Mash's literary oeuvre is a brave achievement, and her work is urgently relevant today as displaced people seek refuge across the globe.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Jewish, Historical Fiction

192 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 28, 2018

Reviews

[Marina the Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deep nostalgia for many vanished worlds - the Jewish shtetl, the Soviet regime in its hum drum aspects as well as in those absurdly hilarious( “Ilf&Petrov” like), the brief and cruel Romanian rule over Bessarabia, the Gulag, and finally the Israel of the Russian immigrants, the languages (Hebrew and Yiddish), the religious bureaucracy - mirror image of the Soviet one, the stories, old and new. I don’t know why I can’t give it more than three stars. For me it was like a visit to my old homes, that don’t exist anymore. Nothing from these stories exists anymore. And I feel that they are too specific, too narrow, to interest anyone that doesn’t know it all already.

[anna marie]

i really don’t know how to feel about this - i thought the first part of the collection with stories that focused on the lives of women and girls in the 40s in bessarabia or soviet moldova were not only invaluable in their deft articulation of extemely difficult experiences but also how well crafted, inventive, resourceful & linguistically (even in translation !) creative they were. they left me with really strong images & the focus on women and girls’s relationships to eachother i loved a lot (especially in the story 'the payback') as well as how especially in 'resting place' a new kind of judaism, a violently diasporic one but also one that has a sense of faith even against hope that is all that can be given by those at that time. but then about 40% in there is a shift from these stories to those that are set for the majority of the time in israel & i really disliked these. both politically and as a kind of response to the earlier violence. responding to your own violent displacement by participating in the violent displacement of palestinians isn’t just or fair or what you are owed. (ofc you need care & safety and food & a home but not at the expense of someone else!! & justice isnt going to come thru a nation state lol obviously)

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first stories in this book are hopeless and bleak but effective - people ripped from their homeland and suffering in Siberia, yearning for the customs and culture of Bessarabia where they came from. “The Payback” is particularly effective. Sometimes the writing is a little on the nose, like this final line from The Bridegroom Tree: “A bomb from a thundering Messerschmidt split the tree in two, burying those who’d taken cover underneath. So it would be for anyone who attempted to give shelter to the Jews.”

The second half features stories about people assimilating in Israel, and I found these less effective. It felt as though they were written for insiders and people who already thoroughly understood the culture and I couldn’t quite get in.

So I wavered between 3 and 4 stars. On one hand, this book has me interested in reading more about Bessarabia, and when I visit Ukraine next year I might even poke into Moldova since this book sparked my interest. On the other hand either the author or translator is not the best prose stylist: “In the middle of the night, Ella awoke with a start, frightened to death.” Still, very glad I read it. (Update: I did not visit Ukraine.)

[Erika Dreifus · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I plan an upcoming course for undergraduates on Contemporary Jewish Short Stories, I'm seeking readings to help present the very contemporary focus on reviving the work of Yiddish women writers, particularly through newly available translations. I'm likely to use work from this collection, which held my attention throughout; I will also depend on Jessica Kirzane's fine introduction and Cassedy's remarks as I've already encountered them in at least one webinar. As I read, I was reminded of Ida Fink's (originally Polish) writing, which, similarly, I have only encountered recently, and which I have incorporated into my Holocaust Literature teaching.

[Ariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book of short stories I would never otherwise have finished reading, for my “Stories of Exile” workshop coming up at the Yiddish Book Center. It’s beautifully written; the very first paragraph grabs you and shakes you like a terrier shakes a rat. But the content is heartrending at first. The author’s family is forced from their happy little shtetl in Bessarabia (well, happy enough, it’s Eastern Europe and they’re Jewish so how happy can they be?). The families are broken apart, men from women, and exiled to Siberia in one of Stalin’s massive purges. (By the way, it is very interesting to read about a Jewish exile that wasn’t caused by the Holocaust. It's both the same and different.) The writing is beautiful, and the stories are profound, but the author’s pangs of loss are so acute and life in Siberia is so terrible, there is no way I would have continued reading if not for professional reasons. I had to keep recording my page count on Goodreads to cheer myself onward, an extreme step. But eventually the stories lighten up. The character who seems to be the writer comes back to Bessarabia, confronts the loss of her entire village and way of life, goes onto establish a new life in the new Soviet Union, and then finally finds a reasonably happy old age in a second exile, this time in Israel. (Though the characters are, of course, still bitter, fearful, and traumatized despite their wry sense of humor. But in some sense, that’s practically a description of being Jewish anyway.) By the end I enjoyed the book so much that I forgot all about recording my page count on Goodreads.

[Cathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even from the first pages, I was impressed with this work for its spare but evocative style and for what it represents in both authorship and frame. By the midpoint and beyond, I realized my appreciation had grown beyond the intellectual; there was an emotional resonance I had not anticipated from an experience with which I have no direct personal connection, and I've been continuing to reflect on different elements for days.

I have to credit a colleague for placing this in juxtaposition with The House on Mango Street. Other than the fact they share a vignette structure and feature marginalized perspectives, I would not have expected benefit in setting them even loosely in conversation with each other. On the Landing is still the more successful by far, but my disappointment in the Cisneros has perhaps softened as a result.

The afterword written by translator Ellen Cassedy and Yiddish professor Jessica Kirzone was a revelation in itself, sparking an inclination to immediately start the book anew. I had the privilege of participating in a library discussion with Kirzone, and the background and insights she presented not only deepened my admiration for this remarkable work but also sparked the additional processing that shows no signs of lessening.

[Shelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved these stories although I had to read them slowly and over time. I particularly enjoyed the integration of dark reality with wit and imagination. Her frequent use of creative metaphors lightened and informed the environments in which they were applied. In the longest story- The Retirees, there seemed to me to be much more than a hint and maybe homage to the more classical Yiddish writers with whom we are more familiar. I am in awe of the translators ability to retain the feel and rhythm of Yiddish.
Using this book for my book group and trying to figure out how to organize the discussion so as to do it justice.

[Miriam Kahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interconnected short stories by Besarabian (now Israeli) author Yenta Mash (born 1920s), written in Yiddish and newly translated (2018) into English.

The tales describe life in Besarabia and Siberia where her family was exiled during WWII by the Russians. Later stories describe her subsequent immigration in the 1970s to Israel and efforts to acculturate in a new country.

You'll learn about the harsh life Yenta Mash and her family endured. While fictionalized, it's clear these stories are drawn from Mash's life.

I read this book as part of the Yiddish Book Club sponsored by the Yiddish Book Center and the Bexley Public Library where we are reading books translated from Yiddish to English.

[Peggy Walt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to read Yenta Mashs's stories, now translated into English from Yiddish by Ellen Cassedy, because I thought I could learn something about my mother-in-law's deportation to Siberia during the 2nd world war. Came for the destination, stayed for the journey. Her writing is moving, witty and inspiring to someone like me, transitioning to writing later in life. I'll hope to be able to read other works by her, and thank the Northern Illinois University Press and the Yiddish Book Centre for bringing this one to those of us unfortunate enough not to know the mamaloshen.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book of short stories in translation was nothing short of luminous. Nearly every one a treasure, worth re-reading. They are culled from Mash’s other books (in Yiddish), representing different periods of her life — during the war, in harsh Soviet labor camps, as immigrants to Israel.
Definitely add this to your “must read” shelf!

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A touching series of stories about Jews who left Russia for Israel, with a focus on the psychological costs of losing the old and adapting to the new, all while aging.

[Jay Resnick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading this collection of short stories. The stories are powerful, moving and intriguing. I look forward to rereading these, as they feel so complex beneath the surface.

[Daphne Zanni · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered this gem through Shawn (Shawn the BookManiac)Loved it!
My Faves: resting place,bread,the cap,the second time around,the payback.

[Sara'la · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good. Excellent writer and translator.