Yiddish Folktales » (1ST SCHOCK)

Beatrice Silverman Weinreich is a research associate at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York and co-editor of the journal Yidisher Folklore.

Filled with princesses and witches, dybbuks and wonder-working rebbes, the two hundred marvelous tales that make up this delightful compendium were gathered during the 1920s and 1930s by ethnographers in the small towns and villages of Eastern Europe. Collected from people of all walks of life, they include parables and allegories about life, luck, and wisdom; tales of magic and wonder; stories about rebbes and their disciples; and tales whose only purpose is to entertain. Long after the culture that produced them has disappeared, these enchanting Yiddish folktales continue to work their magic today.

Publishers Weekly

The repetitive nature, didacticism and brevity (some are a mere paragraph long) of its tales limits the appeal of this newest volume in Pantheon's Fairy Tale and Folklore Library; it has considerable value as a reference tool but not as an absorbing collection of short stories. Weinreich, a research associate at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York, culls from YIVO's archives 178 examples of moral allegories, religious stories with ethical messages, children's, fairy and humorous tales, and legends of saints, villains and supernatural demons. Much here has a Jewish flavor: rabbis and Elijah the Prophet people stories set on Passover, Sukkoth or the Sabbath. But one is also struck by the similarity of many of these tales to those gathered by the Brothers Grimmreaders will wish for greater documentation of dates and sources and more analytical material comparing this work and its elements to others in the folklore genre, as well as discussing its place in Yiddish literature. (Nov).