Fiction

A strike tests Avreml's loyalty in these two chapters from labor-leader Ben Gold's first novel. Translated by Annie Kaufman.

All his thinking finally led him to a clear decision: he had to leave Golodovke.

Rebbe Nachman's most famous shaggy dog story.

Who was Old Dovidl—or David, King of Israel?

Aunt Taibele never missed a funeral.

A fabulist story of loneliness by Arn Mayzl, translated by Sophia Shoulson.

A short story by Yehudis—a conversation between two women friends about love and desire.

An excerpt about the 1929 riots in Palestine from the novel "'Boom' and Chains" (1936). By Khonen Klenbort under his pen name Kh. A-Yalti, and translated by Adi Mahalel.

“The whole thing got started because Siomke Kagan, the reporter for the Vilner tog newspaper, went to war with Sophianikes Street.” A short story by Abraham Karpinowitz. Translated by Helen Mintz.

In this story by Yente Serdatsky, a shepherdess falls for an enchanted knight whose heart has been turned to stone. Translated by 2021-2022 translation fellow Dalia Wolfson.

A touching story about a daughter's love for her mother by Avrom Reyzen, translated by Curt Leviant.

Two miniatures by Boris Sandler imaging the later years of the subjects of the Song of Songs, translated by Jordan Kutzik.

An excerpt from Grade's work The Silent Minyan about life in the "shul hoyf" in prewar Vilna.

A story by Boris Sandler written from the perspective of a young girl spending the day with her father, translated by Jordan Kutzik.

A Sukkos story by Sholem Aleichem, translated by Curt Leviant.

The story of a young couple’s secret love and the unintended consequences this secret has for the lovers, their families, and even their entire town.

What could possibly go wrong with a love triangle in the mountains of Austria?

An original translation of a Mendele holiday story. Stay for the O.Henry-esque twist

Two sketches by Yiddish novelist and prose writer Froyim Kaganovski, one of interwar Poland’s most prominent writers.

Translations of three of Micha Josef Berdyczewski's works by James Adam Redfield.

A short story by famed, path-breaking Yiddish poet Avrom Sutzkever, published in 1975.

A short story by the Yiddish writer Getsl (George) Selikovitch about the search for beauty.

Chapter one of Yoshua Perle's classic novel Everyday Jews, part of our New Yiddish Library Series.

Translations of two Yom Kippur-themed stories by Rosa Palatnik.

The unfinished final chapter of Motl, the Cantor's Son, the last thing Sholem Aleichem ever wrote, newly translated by Larry Rosenwald.

The prologue and first chapter of Sholem Aleichem's classic Jewish romance, newly translated by Daniel Kennedy.

A story of tension and intensity, from the writer Yenta Mash, translated by Ellen Cassedy. (Photo courtesy of the Yiddish Forward.)

Joseph Opatoshu's take on the tormented personal life of a young Hebrew teacher in New York. Translated by Shulamith Berger.

An unflinching look at poverty and the disdain, cruelty, and brutality meted out even among Jews to other Jews, and the story of an unlikely couple finding each other.

An excerpt from Pioneers (Pionern).

An Abraham Karpinowitz story translated by Helen Mintz, as part of her new collection, Vilna My Vilna. Karpinowitz recreates prewar Vilna with subtle artistry and painstaking accuracy: streets, businesses, libraries, people, slang.