Product Description

Runner-up in the 2005 National Jewish Book Award in the Anthologies and Collections category.

A comprehensive collection of best short fiction by the three classic Yiddish authors.

Two early works by S.Y. Abramovitsh introduce the reader to Abramovitsh's alter ego Mendele the Book Peddler. Mendele narrates both The Little Man and Fishke the Lame. In different voices, he also presents a diverse cast of characters including Isaac Abraham as tailor's apprentice, choirboy, and corrupt businessman. Reb Alter tells of his matchmaking mishap and Fishke relates his travels through the Ukraine with a caravan of beggars.

Sholem Aleichem's Tevye reemerges from new translations of "Hodel" and "Chava" in all of his comic splendor. Notes enable students to follow Tevye's uneven steps through Bible quotations. Four of Sholem Aleichem's other eloquent monologists come back to haunt us in scintillating translations.

The selections from Peretz include his finest stories about the hasidim, such as "Kabbalists," "Teachings of the Hasidim," and the ironic tale "The Rebbe's Pipe." A fresh rendering of Peretz's masterpiece "Between Two Mountains" represents the meeting of an inspirational rebbe and an awe-inspiring rabbi.

Following the translations are three biographical essays about these giants of modern Yiddish literature.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #700552 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.05" h x 6.22" w x 9.66" l, 1.27 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Review
...Ken Frieden has produced yet another: a collection of fresh translations of the great troika of Yiddish storytellers ... -- The Jerusalem Report

...a young writer filled with the critical sensibility and reformist urges of the Jewish Enlightenment, and fleshes out ... -- Literary Quarterly

This is a book for every collection — university, synagogue, yeshiva, and public library — and is highly recommended ... -- AJL Newsletter

About the Author
Ken Frieden is the B. G. Rudolph Professor and Director of the Judaic Studies Program at Syracuse University.

Professor Frieden has published numerous books and essays on Yiddish and Hebrew literature. His acclaimed study Classic Yiddish Fiction is the companion volume to the anthology Classic Yiddish Stories.

Frieden received his doctorate in comparative literature at Yale University.. He has taught at Syracuse University and Emory University and has been a visiting professor at Tel Aviv University, Haifa University, Heidelberg University, and the University of California Davis. He has also received major fellowships for research at Harvard University, Oxford University, the Free University of Berlin, and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Frieden's previous work as an editor resulted in the anthologies Tales of Mendele the Book Peddler and Sholem Aleichem's Nineteen to the Dozen: Monologues and Bits and Bobs of Other Things. He edits the Syracuse University Press series, Judaic Traditions in Literature, Music, and Art.