The Letters of Menakhem-Mendl and Sheyne-Sheyndl by Sholem Aleichem (1905)

Sholem Aleichem (1859 to 1916, Ukraine) is by far, based on my limited knowledge, the most known to the wider world of Yiddish language writers.  His work is the basis for one of the most popular movies of all time Fiddler on the Roof.  I wish he would have lived to become hugely rich from the movie's success.  

The Letters of Menakhem - Mendel & Sheyne - Sheyndl , an epistolary novel, is my first exposure to the work of Sholem Aleichem.  The letters that make up the novel are between a man and wife in early 20th century Ukraine.   It is just so funny I laughed out loud as I read it.   The man has left home to make money to send home for the support of his long suffering wife and their many children.   The woman is a conservative stay at home grounded in folk wisdom and the family wife and mother where the husband is bolder and though he probably loves his wife, finds his home life a bit boring.  He ,tries six different occupations from stock broker, writer,real estate sales, loan factoring and insurance sales man to match maker.  He starts each new occupation with a letter to his wife saying how he was cheated in his previous occupation but the new venture he had undertaken will bring the family riches. His wife writes back, with each letter starting with a loving greeting, and tells him how terrible things are at home, how her mother tells her she married a fool, and how he is an idiot with a bloated ego.  As I read this I could not help but see myself getting letters like this had this been me and my wife.  I felt it  when she kept calling him "your highness".  I found the ending terribly sad.  

The Letters of Menakhem - Mendel & Sheyne - Sheyndl is only about 100 pages.  In addition to being Mel Brooks funny it gives a brilliant portrait of a marriage and a look at Jewish life in the Ukraine.  I am looking forward to reading soon Motl, The Cantor's Son, a much longer work.  The volume contains a very good introduction. 

Mel u 

"What is the Soul" by I. L. Peretz (1890). The Reading Life Yale Digital Library Project

Thanks to a very generous gift from Yale University Press I have begun another permanent long term Reading Life Project, Yiddish Literature.  My prior posts have some back ground information on the culture from which Yiddish literature came.  I am also on the opening stages of another new long term project, The Literature of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and I feel these two projects should be mutually illuminating.   Both of these cultures were deeply into the reading life and essentially similar forces doomed them both.  (All old projects continue on.). The literature of these societies were produced by and large by deeply cultured men.  If there are any high status Yiddish female writers translated into English, please let me know.  

"What is the Soul" is a kind of coming of age story of a young student at a rabbinical school.  It reflects the deep reference those in this tradition had for scholars and learning.  The student, a young man, is preoccupied with concerns about the nature of the soul.  He asks his teachers if Goys have souls, if animals do, if it is corporeal and how it survives death.  He gets many different answers.  You can see in this story how the Yiddish community defined itself through a contrast with Christians (Goys) and to a lesser extent fully European Jews.  (In works by Viennese Jewish writers you will hear Jews calling others Jews "Yids" in derision.)  We see the student begin to realize his teachers may not know.  

"What is the Soul" is very much reading and gives us a look into a lost world. 

Isaac Leybush Peretz (1852–1915) is one of the most influential figures of modern Jewish culture. Born in Poland and dedicated to Yiddish culture, he recognized that Jews needed to adapt to their times while preserving their cultural heritage, and his captivating and beautiful writings explore the complexities inherent in the struggle between tradition and the desire for progress. This book, which presents a memoir, poem, travelogue, and twenty-six stories by Peretz, also provides a detailed essay about Peretz’s life by Ruth R. Wisse. This edition of the book includes as well Peretz’s great visionary drama A Night in the Old Marketplace, in a rhymed, performable translation by Hillel Halkin.

“If you want to discover the beauty, the depth, the unique wonder of Yiddish literature—read this volume by its Master.”—Elie Wiesel 

(From Yale University Press)