We Travel

Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman’s Mir forn (We Travel) imaginatively depicts various means of transportation through both written form and Schaechter-Gottesman’s own whimsical illustrations: an appropriate display of the versatility of her artistic and literary talents. This simple rhyming children’s story, although universal in its representation of youthful wonder and wanderlust, also captures the particularity of the cultural moment in which it was published: in 1963 America, in the thick of the Space Age, the rocket was the pinnacle of American ambition and imagination. In portraying, from a childlike perspective, the wide range of ways humans can physically move through the world, this story gives us the opportunity to take a step back and marvel at these technologies. The translators have deviated only slightly from the literal meaning where necessary in order to preserve the meter and rhyme of the original.

BEYLE SCHAECHTER-GOTTESMAN (1920–2013) was a Yiddish poet, songwriter, and artist who was born in Vienna and grew up in Czernowitz. Her writing career began with children’s literature, songs, and plays that she wrote for her own chil-dren. Beyle was an integral part of the Yiddish-speaking community of Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx. She taught at the Workmen’s Circle and the Sholem Aleichem Folkshul and also edited Enge benge, a children’s journal written by children.

MIRANDA COOPER, RAPHAEL HALFF, ZEKE LEVINE, and ELISSA SPERLING are 2017–2018 fellows at the Yiddish Book Center, where they work on various projects in the field of Yiddish studies. Miranda Cooper is a writer of cultural and literary criticism, fiction, and poetry; a student of Yiddish; and an amateur Yiddish literary translator. Raphael Halff has dreams of traveling but in the meantime is satisfied with reading children’s books on the subject. Zeke Levine is a musician and Yiddish student who seeks to combine these passions in his work. Elissa Sperling is a trained librarian who loves Yiddish, children’s literature, books, and travel and was excited to bring these interests together. This collaborative translation of Schaechter-Gottesman is their first published literary translation.

Learn about the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project's forthcoming short film BEYLE. The documentary short, explores the life and legacy of Yiddish activist and artist Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman.