Di festung (The Fortress): Sutzkever's collection of poems

Avrom Sutzkever

On January 20, 2010, the Yiddish world lost a poet and hero. Born in 1913, Avrom Sutzkever spent his early childhood in Siberia and his youth in Vilna, where he belonged to the Yiddish writers' group Yung Vilne. During the Nazi occupation he used his forced labor detail to smuggle arms into the Vilna Ghetto and rare materials out of the YIVO archive, and documented the conditions of the ghetto in verse. After his escape to the partisans in 1943 he was airlifted to Moscow, and later testified at the Nuremberg trials. In 1947 he moved to Tel Aviv and founded the literary quarterly Di goldene keyt (The Golden Chain, which he edited until 1995). His presence and his work brought new life to Yiddish in Israel, and he is the only Yiddish poet to have received the Israel Prize (1985). View Di festung and other books by Sutzkever in our digital library.

Labzik

Chaver-Paver (Gershon Einbinder)

Labzik is a dog story by Chaver-Paver (Gershon Einbinder), who managed to make 1930s leftist politics engaging and funny to students of the International Workers Order's Yiddish shuls. Amusingly illustrated by Louis Bunin.

Blonzende shtern (Wandering Stars), v. 1

Sholem Aleichem

Sholem Aleichem’s little-known novel Blonzende shtern (Wandering Stars) gives a vivid and gritty portrait of the Yiddish theater in the late 19th and early 20th century. Reizel the poor cantor’s daughter and Leibl the rich man’s son fall in love, but are separated by their careers. Recently translated by Aliza Shevrin.

Yidishe eṭnografye un folḳlor (Yiddish Ethnography and Folklore)

Abraham Rechtman

View Abraham Rechtman’s memoir of S. An-Ski’s ethnographic expedition in the Pale of Settlement, with illustrations and photos of old houses, synagogues, gravestones, and folk art motifs.

The Sonnets in Yiddish

William Shakespeare

Zol ikh farglaykhn dikh tsum zumer-tog? Shall I compare thee to a Summer's Day? The works of Shakespeare fascinated many Yiddish translators. A number of his plays were published in Yiddish, including an alleged Polish edition of a Yiddish King Lear that included the claim fartaytsht un farbesert ("translated and improved") on the title page. You can view or download two translations from our Digital Yiddish Library:  a bilingual edition of the Sonnets, translated by Berl Lapin, who also translated William Blake, Emily Dickinson, and Robert Frost; and a translation by Abraham Asen, who also translated Whitman, Tennyson, Byron, and The Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayyam.
 

Teoretishe un praktishe arifmetik (Theoretical and Practical Arithmetic)

A. B. Rozenshteyn

A. B. Rozenshteyn published home-study courses with the Warsaw press Bikher-far-ale ("Books for all") in the early 20th century. His 1909 Teoretishe un praktishe arifmetik (Theoretical and Practical Arithmetic) is not only one of a very few Yiddish math texts, it's surprisingly lively and visually interesting.
 

Manger's "Book of Paradise"

Itsik Manger

Itsik Manger’s only novel, Di vunderlekhe lebnsbashraybung fun Shemu’el Aba Abervo (The Wonderful Adventures of Shmuel-Aba Abervo) is better known by its subtitle, Dos bukh fun Ganeydn, The Book of Paradise. It’s an irreverent romp (with topical allusions) through the precincts of heaven by two bad-boy angels, Shmuel-Aba and his sidekick Pisherl. They annoy the great personages of the Bible, make a dangerous foray into the Christian heaven next door, and—in Shmuel-Aba’s case—live to tell the tale, by outwitting the drunken angel whose job is to make little angels forget everything before they are born on earth. Charmingly illustrated by Mendl Reyf, the book was originally published in Warsaw in 1939.

Gezamelte ertsehlungen (Collected Stories)

Fradel Shtok

Fradel Shtok was one of the earliest modern Yiddish women writers to gain recognition for her work, and one of the first Yiddish poets to write sonnets. She is among the handful of women represented in Moyshe Bassin's 1917 Antologye fun finf hundert yohr Idishe poezye (Anthology of Five Hundred Years of Yiddish Poetry). Her 1919 collection Gezamelte ertsehlungen (Collected Stories) explored the emotions and circumscribed lives of women in the shtetl and the sweatshop. Reviewers praised her style -- but one found her subject matter monotonous, and a communist critic accused her of pessimism. Thereupon Shtok stopped writing in Yiddish. She subsequently published a novel in English, then disappeared from the literary scene. The date of her death is unknown.

Yiddish Chemistry and Astronomy

various

When we say “Yiddish Chemistry,” we’re not talking about the emotional dynamics of the mishpokhe! Home study books in the sciences were popular among Yiddish readers in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. The National Educational Committee of the Workmen's Circle published S. Faynstun's Khemye: tsu lezen un tsu lernen (Chemistry: To Read and to Learn) in 1920, and Benzion Hoffman’s Astronomye (Astronomy) in 1918. You can read these science books (and view the pictures) in our Digital Yiddish Library.