Classic Yiddish literature

A village dairyman argues with God about his daughters, who refuse arranged marriages: Tevye the Dairyman, written by Sholem Aleichem from 1894, would become a musical known everywhere a century later. Yiddish, the daily language of millions of Jews in central and eastern Europe, gave itself a written literature around 1860, with Mendele as grandfather, Peretz as master of tales and Sholem Aleichem as humorist. That culture was destroyed by the Shoah; Singer, an émigré in New York, went on writing in Yiddish until the Nobel.

works 6

• NovelThe Brief Travels of Benjamin the Thirdקיצור מסעות בנימין השלישיMendele Mocher Sforim · 1878Published in Yiddish in 1878, the Jewish Don Quixote: two naive men from a wretched small town set out to find the Ten Tribes.Literature
• NovelTevye the Dairymanטבֿיה דער מילכיקערSholem Aleichem · 1894A cycle of monologues in Yiddish, written from 1894 to 1914, about a Jewish milkman from the Kiev area and his daughters.Literature
• TaleHasidic TalesKhsidishIsaac Leib Peretz · 1900Tales taken from the pious communities of the East, reported by an unbeliever who does not mock them.Literature
• TheatreGod of VengeanceGot fun nekomeSholem Asch · 1907A brothel keeper tries to keep his daughter apart from the world that gives him his living.Literature
• TaleThe Magicianדער קונצנמאכערIsaac Leib Peretz · 1917A Yiddish tale by Peretz: a passing magician invites himself into the home of poor people who have nothing with which to celebrate Passover, and their table fills with food.Literature
• NovelThe Magician of LublinDer Kuntsnmakher fun LublinIsaac Bashevis Singer · 1959The novel departs from the familiar literature of Eastern European Jews: its hero, without faith, tries every possible life to see which one will hold him.Literature