2021 Pakn Treger Digital Translation Issue

Published: Summer 2021

The 2021 Pakn Treger Digital Translation Issue is available to read on our site (all pieces are linked below) and will be available for download as an e-book. Links will be added here when they are available.

To download to your Kindle
To download to your NOOK
To download from BookBaby
To download from Kobo

Madeleine Cohen Translation Editor
Lisa Newman Executive Editor
Abigail Weaver Translation Editor
Lesley Yalen Managing Editor
Greg Lauzon Copy Editor
Alexander Isley Inc. Art Direction and Design
Cover by Matt Foster

Support for Pakn Treger comes from:

The Joseph and Marion Brechner Fund for Jewish Cultural Reporting
The Charles Corfield Fund for Pakn Treger
The Kaplen Fund for Pakn Treger
The Mark Pinson Fund for Pakn Treger

Copyright in each translation is held by the translator. Copyright for the excerpt from My Childhood Years is held by Jessica Hirshbein.

“Spring in Whitechapel” by A. M. Kaizer, translated from the Yiddish by Vivi Lachs, first appeared in the 2021 Pakn Treger Digital Translation Issue and is also forthcoming in the collection London Yiddishtown: East-End Jewish Life in Yiddish Sketch and Story, 1930–1950 (Wayne State University Press). The work is a result of Vivi Lachs' Yiddish Book Center translation fellowship.

Yiddish in Nature: Introduction

By Madeleine Cohen.

Landscape with Travelers on a Woodland Path, ca. 1607, Jan Brueghel the Elder.

From the introduction to Collected Works

By Mendele Mocher Sforim, translated by Miriam Udel. "Gentlemen, I confess! I’ve had a weakness since childhood—I wouldn’t wish it on any Jew—which in their language is called 'love of nature.'"

Sahurs Meadows in Morning Sun, 1894, Alfred Sisley

Summer Awakening

By Esther Shumiatcher-Hirschbein, translated by Miri Koral.

A Storm off the Normandy Coast, probably 1850s, Eugène Isabey

Prehistoric Landscapes

by Melech Ravitch, translated by Helen Mintz. "This took place in Vienna during the early summer of 1920, a year after I’d been dead for twenty-four hours."

Sunrise on the Matterhorn, after 1875, Albert Bierstadt

Chatyr-Dag [1–3]

By Peretz Markish, translated by Jordan Finkin.

Rainstorm—Cider Mill at Redding, Connecticut, ca. 1840, George Harvey

Covered by Cobwebs

By Shira Gorshman, translated by Beth Dwoskin. "The mill is empty. Tattered, dusty pieces of cobweb hang from the rafters."

The Fool and the Forest Spirit

By Der Nister, translated by Joseph Tomaras. "For many years, the fool had lived in the wild woods in service to the forest spirit..."

A Gorge in the Mountains (Kauterskill Clove), 1862, Sanford Robinson Gifford

With Golden Steps over Earth

By Pessie Pomerantz-Honigbaum, translated by Jessica Kirzane.

A Fir Tree in the Forest of the Landes, Aquitane 1909, René-Ernest Huet.

In a Forest of Fir

By Moyshe Kulbak, translated by Paul S. Stevenson

Evening in the Woods, 1876, Worthington Whittredge

Baal Shem

By Itzik Manger, translated by Murray Citron

The Aegean Sea, ca. 1877, Frederic Edwin Church

Memory of Three Lake Victoria Flamingos

By Avrom Sutzkever, translated by Maia Evrona.

Winter Scene in Moonlight, 1869, Henry Farrer

A Winter in the Shtetl

By Sholem Asch, translated by Ellen Cassedy. "Deep in the valley, hidden and half asleep, lies the shtetl. . ."

Owl Mocked by Small Birds, ca. 1887, Kawanabe Kyōsai

The Owl

By Rachel Korn, translated by Miriam Isaacs.

Rue de l'Épicerie, Rouen (Effect of Sunlight), 1898, Camille Pissarro

Spring in Whitechapel

By A. M. Kaizer, translated by Vivi Lachs. " I wandered around Whitechapel for the whole day, with my head tilted back scouring the heavens for a patch of blue . . ."