Yiddish Tales

by Various, Helena Frank (Translator)

A collection of 48 wonderful English language stories from Sholem Alechem, I. L. Perez, Shalom Asch, and others. Tales of humour and drama, tragedy and pathos set mostly in the Jewish communities of 19th-century eastern Europe, Russia, and the Ukraine. Translated from Yiddish by Helena Frank.

Genres: Fiction, Religion, Classics, Short Stories, Judaism

590 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1912

About the author

Various is the correct author for any book with multiple unknown authors, and is acceptable for books with multiple known authors, especially if not all are known or the list is very long (over 50).

If an editor is known, however, Various is not necessary. List the name of the editor as the primary author (with role "editor"). Contributing authors' names follow it.

Note: WorldCat is an excellent resource for finding author information and contents of anthologies.

Reviews

[Kilian Metcalf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published in 1911, this book precedes the Russian Revolution by some years. All these stories are set in the misery of the Eastern European ghetto and reflect the hopelessness of that time and place.

Life is hard for a man, especially a Jew. There is one exception. On Shabbat eve, with candles glowing, his wife and children surrounding him in their best clothing—a man is a king. Then he can sing and drink wine and enjoy life. No matter that tomorrow his labor start again, for now he is a king.

It's that spirit that permeates the stories, even if unspoken.Whether the stories are lighthearted or tragic, easy to understand or completely opaque, underlying them all is a sense of what Jewish life is about.

[Mirel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rich on pathos with a look into a different world. d

Some of these stories brought tears to my eyes. Enjoyed the chance to read stories from authors I'd read before, authors I'd heard of, and authors who were new to me. Love Sholem Aleichem, and was moved by Loeb Schapiro's "If It Was a Dream," which was, like many of the other stories, so eloquent with the understated.

[Jordana Schmier · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great selection of stories, with different styles and pacing. The only difficulty is that the translations are so varied. Some of them allow the stories to flow and others have words in quotation marks that could easily have been handled smoothly. Those cases make it seem as if the stories are somehow of a different time and place and not as universal as so many of them are.

[Georgiana · Rating 1 out of 5]

I listened to the LibriVox recording:

http://www.archive.org/details/yiddis...

but I gave up after about 1/3 of the book. Perhaps I'm missing something or just randomly picked the worse stories, but I found them incredibly boring.

[Madeline Stone · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't imagine real Jews are as melodramatic about their lot in life as these.

[a dog who learned to read · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a neat collection of short stories, it's cool to have so many of them from a bunch of different authors. Some are more interesting than others, but overall it was a super interesting collection. A favourite of mine was "A Woman's Wrath" by Isaac Lob Perez.