The Mendele Review: Yiddish Literature and Language
(A Companion to MENDELE)
______________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 08.009 [Sequential No. 148]
Date: 1 September, 2004
1) Editor's Note (L.P.)
2) Review of Joachim Neugroschel,ed,tr. & intros. No Star Too Beautiful:
An Anthology of Yiddish Stories (Lawrence Rosenwald)
3) An Ester Kreytman [Esther Kreitman] Bibliography (Faith Jones)
1)-----------------------------------------------------
Date: 31 August 2004
From: Leonard Prager
Subject: Editor's Note
a. "Yeah, yeah": In memory of Sidney Morgenbesser.
On August 3 of this year the lively electronic Jewish cultural digest
_Nextbook_ published a notice of the death of the inimitable Columbia
University philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser, one that deserves reprinting
here: Sidney Morgenbesser, Philosophical Wit When Morgenbesser muttered
"yeah, yeah" in response to an assertion that two positives can't make a
negative, the Columbia University professor showed that formal analysis of
language is "frozen from the real use that people make," says Leon Botstein,
likening it to the "immense power" of Yiddish. Reared on the Lower East
Side, Morgenbesser edited volumes on John Dewey and the philosophy of
science. He once chastised a colleague from the same neighborhood for hiding
his accent: "I see your model is 'Incognito, ergo sum.'
b. The Neugroschel anthology.
The Onkelos section of Mendele was initiated to make available the original
Yiddish texts of the stories in the now classic Howe and Greenberg anthology
(_A Treasury of Yiddish Stories_), first published in 1953. The sources of
all but one or two selections were identified. As Lawrence Rosenwald so
clearly states in his deeply probing review, it is highly desirable that we
have access at the least to a list of the Yiddish originals of the
impressive Neugroschel collection.
c. Hugh Denman's compendious bibliography of anthologies of English
translations of Yiddish works in the last issue of TMR is but a first
installment of a larger work. The present issue of TMR focusses on a single
writer, the somewhat neglected but increasingly better known and recognized
Ester Kreytman, sister of the famous Isaac Bashevis Singer and Israel Joshua
Singer. A number of Yiddish scholars are now writing about Kreytman and
Faith Jones' register of writing by and about her should prove immediately
useful to them, as well as to readers who have not yet made an acquaintance
with the Polish-born London novelist. Hopefully we will see more
single-author bibliographies in future issues of TMR.
d. Full text access to _Khulyot_
The principal Israeli academic medium for writing on Yiddish literature is
the now eight-year old annual _Khulyot_ (_Ringen_ 'Links'). Full- Text
access to an increasing number of _Khulyot_ essays is now possible by
entering the "World of Yiddish"/"Di velt fun yidish" website (http://
yiddish.haifa.ac.il). Click on the essay title in the Abstracts section of
_Khulyot_. Additional essays will be viewable in the near future.
e. In a coming issue: Review of Dovid Katz's magisterial _Lithuanian
Jewish Culture_ (Vilna: Baltos Lankos, 2004, 398pp).
2)---------------------------------------------------
Date: 31 August 2004
From: Lawrence A. Rosenwald
Subject: Review of No Star Too Beautiful, an anthology of Yiddish
literature, ed. Joachim Neugroschel
Neugroschel, Joachim, ed., tr. & intros., No Star Too Beautiful:
An Anthology of Yiddish Stories, 1382 to the Present, NY: Norton, 2002,
xvii, 710pp. [ISBN: 0-393-05190-0]
Translators are invisible; so much we know from our own experience, and so
much recent translation theorists, notably Lawrence Venuti, have taught us.
[n.1] Anthologists are invisible too, though no theory I know of says so;
after all, how many non-professional readers can name five of them? Yet
both translators and anthologists shape our sense of a particular
literature. The former give many readers their most direct experience of
that literature; the latter define that literature's boundaries and
centers. Together, these two kinds of intellectuals matter as much as, and
for the common reader may well matter more than, literary critics and
historians.
Hence the twofold importance of No Star Too Beautiful. Joachim Neugroschel
is an important translator of Yiddish literature, and an important
anthologist. [n.2] And this new anthology is his most ambitious; it
proposes to represent, in Neugroschel's English, not a particular literary
theme, but the whole territory of Yiddish narrative. The book is making
claims both about what Yiddish literature sounds like and about how it
should be mapped.
I. Neugroschel as translator
Like some other distinguished translators, Neugroschel is not simply an
impersonator, but has a voice of his own; it speaks with forward momentum
and vigorous diction, is more active than meditative, more colloquial than
high-flown. We hear that voice with special force in Neugroschel's
rendering of stories told by lively storytellers, e.g., Glikl of Hamelin, or
Yitsik-Avrom the Power Broker in Mendele Moykher- Sforim's "The Little Man,"
or the unnamed narrator of Sholem-Aleichem's "Seventy-Five Thousand." But
we can hear the voices of the authors being translated even when they
diverge from Neugroschel's own. Consider this beautiful, leisurely,
meditative sentence from David Bergelson's "Two Roads": "In the summer, when
everything is green and overgrown, and only the uneasy paved road stretches
with its lead- colored stones like a severe and ordinary ribbon and resounds
with its usual monotonous noise, a couple from the city may turn up in one
of those lonesome cottages for a month and spend entire days wandering
around the green fields, valleys, and mountains" (418). Or this deceptively
flat passage from Rabbi Nakhman's "A Tale of a King's Son Who Was Switched
at Birth with a Maidservant's Son": "Meanwhile night was coming on. The
prince had never had to spend the night alone in such a dense forest. He
heard the roaring of the beasts, who were roaring as is their nature. He
thought about it and then he climbed a tree, where he spent the night. And
all night long he heard the beasts roaring as is their nature" (127) . Or
the rough verse of Leivick's "He," presenting Jesus of Nazareth's vision of
Salome: "The thin veils, just like airy feathers,/ They spread and float
apart and fully expose/ Her nakedness, and then close up again. . . . / Now
all the veils drop from her body, / And she, all naked, naked, naked, /Grows
dizzier, and more absorbed in dancing,/Her lips keep singing, stammering,
murmuring:/ 'My Lord, my Lord, my Lord! '" (531).
Given such talent, it makes sense that the one flaw in Neugroschel's
translations, in my judgment, is his tendency to truncate. I regard this as
the excess of a good quality, namely, the ability to distinguish between
wheat and chaff. Probably, that is, Neugroschel only truncates what he
regards as inessential. And probably he's right, most of the time. But not
always. Here is the end of his translation of a story from the 1602 Mayse
bukh, about a pious Jew whose books were sold by his heirs: "That man never
wanted to lend a book to anyone. For he said he was an old man and his books
might confuse him and he couldn't see very well. . . . But a man should not
act like that. And since he never lent his books to anyone, they are now
coming into strange hands" (44).
The Yiddish text is a bit more elaborate, more formulaic: "But a man should
not act like that. It is better to lend one's books, even if they come back
erased, than to keep them at the back of a cabinet without anyone's being
able to study them. And that is the reason that this happened to the pious
man. The end, the end, the end."[n.3] We don't lose a lot by Neugroschel's
compressions, but we do lose something - e. g., the _reason_ why not
lending books is bad behavior, and the satisfyingly predictable and
fairytale-like conclusion, _der halbn iz dem khosid dos geshen_, "and that
is the reason etc."
A second, small example, from Sholem Aleichem's aforementioned "Seventy-Five
Thousand." In the first few paragraphs, Neugroschel omits a couple of local
references, phrases that set the story in a more specific geography. The
speaker says, "if I bog down or go off on a tangent, tell me where I was"
(358). "Go off on a tangent" renders _farkrikhn keyn boyberik_ ( "crawl
away/ wander off towards Boyberik," one of Sholem-Aleichem's imaginary
towns, mentioned prominently in the first of the Tevye stories). Probably
Neugroschel is right, what the speaker is talking about is pointless
digression. But why not retain the stranger and more local idiom? A couple
of sentences later, the translation refers to "that poor, young bookkeeper
who won forty thousand rubles." Sholem-Aleichem's Yiddish text tells us that
the bookkeeper is from Odessa, and locates him in an office. Neugroschel
might plausibly reply that all bookkeepers work in offices. But they don't
all work in Odessa, and there's some interest, in my view, in knowing that
fact about this bookkeeper. My own preference, in any case, is to have
translators retain all of what's in the original, since it's so hard to be
certain that any given detail doesn't matter.
Neugroschel might well have arguments to offer against these points, and I
might well be convinced by them. And even if I weren't, I'd still rate
Neugroschel's translations very highly: literate, scrupulous, and varied.
II. Neugroschel as Anthologist
The anthology's chief excellence is that it accomplishes in most respects
the goal Neugroschel defines for it in his introduction: "to show the
overwhelming variety of Yiddish fiction (form, diction, structure, etc.)
from its pre-Yiddish roots and medieval debut to its modern traditions and
experimentations" (xvii). I know of no other anthology offering a
comparable sense of that "overwhelming variety." [n.4]
This variety is of several sorts. The first is chronological. Mendele
Moykher-Sforim is often presented as the first great Yiddish writer; in
this chronologically organized anthology, we don't get to him until page
189, and the preceding pages present a remarkable portrait of earlier
Yiddish literature: passages from the Mayse bukh, from the Tsenerene, from
Glikl's memoirs, from the Hasidic masters, and from the shund roman. The
second is formal. For Neugroschel, the category "Yiddish stories" includes
both prose and verse - a thought- provoking claim, whatever one's final
judgment of it might be. The third is demographic; Neugroschel's anthology
includes more than twice as many authors as does Irving Howe and Eliezer
Greenberg's classic Treasury of Yiddish Stories, and eight women to Howe
and Greenberg's none. The fourth concerns tone, mood, register.
Neugroschel's anthology is generously open to what's weird, sexy, wild,
impious, and technically innovative in Yiddish literature, full of dybbuks,
golems, potboilers, beasts, and enigmas. (It's characteristic of
Neugroschel to choose, among the tales of Der Nister, the "most opaque"
(570) of them, "Beheaded," of which this is the bewildering, fascinating
beginning:
"What should we do? Crown him?"
"Whose head is next?"
"Certainly not his!"
"His head really hurts..."
And with a stiffly bent and scrawny finger bone, it struck the middle
of the forehead. And the scalp-and-skull pan flew up like the lid of a
box, open up, and his Comedian, his headache, came out - a dandy...
(570))
Offering such variety is a great accomplishment,which outweighs the
anthology's weaknesses. But the weaknesses matter too. Most of them have to
do with Neugroschel's reticence, his apparent disinclination to put certain
cards on the table. First, and most concretely: Neugroschel provides little
help for a reader who might want to go beyond his excellent translations, to
take those translations as invitations to study the Yiddish texts they're
rendering. He does provide significantly more information than do Howe and
Greenberg, but it's not enough. At a minimum, I'd argue for giving
bibliographic information about every text being translated, and, since not
every reader will have access to the editions Neugroschel is using, each
text's Yiddish title.
Second, I'd want a fuller account of why Neugroschel has chosen these
authors and stories and not others. His headnotes are lively, opinionated,
and informative, but they don't reveal an underlying vision. Consider, for
example, "Seventy-five Thousand," the one Sholem Aleichem story Neugroschel
presents here. In my judgment, the story isn't Sholem-Aleichem's best or
most representative work. Its narrator has the animated, speakerly energy
that marks many of Sholem-Aleichem's monologues, but there's something
unpleasantly manic about him, and something petty and overcomplicated in the
story itself. So I wondered what had underlain Neugroschel's choice of it.
Novelty? Boredom with the over-anthologizing of "The Pot" or the Tevye
stories? Wanting precisely to give us a compelling narrator about whom we
can't be sentimental, to push against the real over-sentimentality of much
of our talk about this author? (Neugroschel does write in his headnote,
"Sholom [sic] Aleichem was much harsher and nastier than his warm-and- fuzzy
reputation in the English- speaking world" (357).)
I wondered, too, why there was no work by Joseph Opatoshu or Moyshe Nadir,
two authors whom I admire a lot. I'm sure Neugroschel had good reasons for
making these choices. But the anthology would be a better book if he'd
stated them, because such statements would have given us a clearer sense of
his views about Yiddish literature.
As would some comments on Neugroschel's part about how he sees his anthology
as relating to the anthologies that precede it. Literary anthologies are
always implicitly talking to other anthologies, and that dialogue, if we can
hear it, illuminates the literature the anthologies are claiming to
represent, as they argue over which works and authors matter more and which
less, where boundaries are, what's inside and what outside. But only if we
can hear it, and Neugroschel's anthology isn't helping us to do that.
Hearing that dialogue is important enough that I'll make the last section of
this review a frankly speculative one, a sketch of what I conjecture
Neugroschel's anthology to be saying to at least one of its great
predecessors. My conjecture may well be wrong. If they are, I'd be
delighted to have Neugroschel correct it! - since to do that, he'd have to
say something more about what position he wants to stake out, and getting to
read his statements on this matter would benefit every student of Yiddish
literature.
The predecessor I have in mind is, predictably enough, Howe and Greenberg's
classic Treasury of Yiddish Stories, published just over half a century ago,
and in my view still the dominant anthology in English. As is suggested
above, Howe and Greenberg are not so much concerned with "overwhelming
variety." They include only twenty-two authors. All are men. The earliest
is Mendele Moykher-Sforim, born circa 1836. The inner circle within the
already narrow outer circle includes just three authors: Mendele, Sholem-
Aleichem, and Y.-L. Peretz, called "The Fathers" in the table of contents.
But the narrowness of both circles makes sense, because it's the apt
expression of a narrow, coherent, and powerful vision of Yiddish literature,
articulated most clearly in the book's magnificent 72-page introduction.
That essay locates the center of Yiddish literature in eastern Europe, in
particular in the shtetl ("modern Yiddish literature focuses on the shtetl
during its last tremor of self- awareness" (28)); in the years between 1860
and 1950; in Mendele, Sholem Aleichem, and Peretz. So located, Yiddish
literature turns out to be mostly realistic - or perhaps "representational"
is a better word, the point being that Yiddish literature as Howe and
Greenberg see it is mostly focused on the relatively intelligible
representation of Jewish social experience. And Jewish social experience
turns out to be pretty coherent too. What Yiddish literature is
representing, Howe and Greenberg argue, is a relatively harmonious and
homogeneous Jewish culture, distinct from western non-Jewish culture, and
having as its central trait "its orientation towards other-worldly values"
(3). Tensions _within_ that culture, e.g., those between men's visions and
women's, matter less; radically idiosyncratic imaginations also matter less.
Hence Howe and Greenberg's confidence in making large general claims, e.g.,
that "one could hardly speak of rival classes [or, by implication, genders]
in the shtetl" (6), that "all the internal tendencies that made for
disintegration [in the shtetl] were kept in check" (7), that "every Jew
[emphasis added] would have immediately [recognized the symbolic power, the
profound gesture of justice emphasis in original] in the refusal of a rabbi
in Peretz's drama . . . to accept 'the week'"(3), that Sholem Aleichem "was
one of the very few modern writers who could be said to speak for an entire
people" (74)
Neugroschel's anthology, in its commitment to "overwhelming variety, " seems
to me a sharp challenge to Howe and Greenberg's synthesis. It has, to begin
with, no author at the center. Mendele gets 45 pages, Ansky 44,
Sholem-Aleichem 37, Peretz 30, Bergelson 27, Hersh-David Nomberg and Yankev
Dinezon 19 each, Rabbi Nakhman 18, Ayzik-Meyer Dik 17. The table of contents
has no special place for any author; Sholem Aleichem is sandwiched between
Ansky and Alexander Kapel, Mendele between Yitsik-Yoyl Linetski and Mortkhe
Spektor. No one is a "father," a son, a grandfather. No gender is central;
men considerably outnumber women, but there are enough women to remind us
not to presume that male authors by themselves can represent Yiddish
experience. No period is central; the earlier literature here is too
interesting and diverse to be simply a precursor to the literature following
it. No theme is central either - or peripheral, for that matter. Howe and
Greenberg, for example, regard the "cult of the dybbuk" as an example of
"superstition . . .[that] had assaulted the dignity of belief" (14); for
Neugroschel, dybbuks are one theme among others .
Read against Howe and Greenberg, and against all the anthologizing and
interpreting deriving from them, Neugroschel seems to me to be saying
"okay, I see what story you're telling, but what do you make of all this
stuff? Where do this and this and this fit into that story?" Displaying
"overwhelming variety" has a polemical edge; "variety" is being opposed to
synthesis.[n.5]
If I'm right in thinking that that is what Neugroschel is saying, then I'd
offer, by way of conclusion, three moderately conflicting judgments of his
anthological enterprise. 1) If forced to take sides, I'd stand with
variety. Howe and Greenberg's story is coherent, explicit, powerful, and
false. Its falsehoods need to be corrected. 2) But variety, even
"overwhelming" variety, is only a starting point and a challenge, has only a
negative force. Countering Howe and Greenberg's story is not simply a
matter of saying, for example, "women's voices matter"; it also entails
saying, "women's voices matter, and if we believe that they matter, and read
what women have written, then the grand, compelling story of Yiddish
literature, the one integrating men's and women's voices together, goes as
follows..." It entails, that is, replacing one coherent story with another.
And as it stands, No Star Too Beautiful doesn't do that. 3) Providing a
new and coherent story is a big task, and it would be unfair to Neugroschel
to criticize him for not accomplishing it. But it is not unfair, I think,
to criticize one of our leading translators and anthologists for his
reticence, for not saying more about what vision might animate this very
impressive anthology of excellent translations.
Endnotes
[1] Venuti, The Translator's Invisibility : A History of Translation
(London; New York: Routledge, 1995).
[2] For details of Neugroschel's other anthologies, see Hugh Denman's
exemplary bibliography of anglophone anthologies of Yiddish literature
in The Mendele Review vol 8, no. 008 (28 July 2004).
[3] I presume that JN is translating the text reproduced in Astrid
Starck's recent extraordinary edition of the Mayse bukh, Un beau livre
d'histoires/ Eyn sheyn Mayse bukh (Basel: Schwabe, 2004).
My translation of the Yiddish text is based on Starck's French version,
2: 816. The concluding phrase, "the end, the end, the end," marks the
fact that this story is the last one in the book; the phrase is
therefore rightly omitted from Neugroschel's translation.
[4] This isn't to say that Neugroschel excludes nothing; he seems, for
example, not to be very interested in Yiddish literature dealing with
America.
[5] It's important to note in this context the strong geographical
concurrence between the two anthologies: the shtetl is the center for
both, rather than the great cities.
Lawrence Rosenwald
Department of English, Wellesley College
3)----------------------------
Date: 31 August 2004
From: Faith Jones
Subject: An Ester Kreytman [Esther Kreitman] Bibliography
A bibliography of Esther Kreitman
Contents:
I. Works by Esther Kreitman
In Yiddish
Novels
Short stories
Non-fiction
Translations Into Yiddish
In English
In Other Languages
II. Works about Esther Kreitman
Primary Material
Biographic and Bibliographic Sources
In Yiddish
In English
In Other Languages
Reviews and Literary Criticism
In Yiddish
In English
In Other Languages
Bashevis and I.J. Singer Biographies/Literary Criticism
Unconfirmed References
A word from the compiler
The year 5764/2003-4, which marks Esther Kreitman's 50th yortsayt, has
proved a watershed for study of her works. New translations are emanating
from England, where Kreitman lived most of her life, and new editions of an
older translation are forthcoming in both England and the United States. The
first scholarly English-language study devoted solely to Kreitman appeared,
too, in the form of Dafna Clifford's Prooftexts article listed below.
In common with most bibliographers, I prefer not to include works I have not
examined. I do so here due to the overall scarcity of material which makes
any citation worth knowing about: however, I have segregated those citations
at the end of the bibliography as a caveat emptor. I have included a
significant body of autobiographical materials written by Kreitman's
brothers, Bashevis and I.J. Singer, and by Kreitman's son, Maurice Carr. The
brothers' memoirs mention their sister very little, are not internally
consistent and do not always concur with the historic record. Carr's two
versions of an article about his family contain conflicting statements.
Readers are asked to judge their factuality for themselves. While it is now
common in Singer studies to use Kreitman's novel Der Sheydim-Tants as a
source of family history - partly because it delves into areas left
unexamined by the brothers - it is important to note that it too is
significantly different in its Yiddish and English versions. Regardless of
which version one chooses to consider definitive, Der Sheydim-Tants was
written by Kreitman as fiction and she neither adhered strictly to fact nor
claimed to. Her single, known autobiography written as such is a 350- word
entry she submitted to a never-published British dictionary of Yiddish
writers. Finally, I would direct researchers to the tantalizing mystery
surrounding a review authored by "I.B.S." in English, in a newspaper for
which Bashevis did not write, the London Jewish Chronicle. I have not found
direct proof that this item was written by Bashevis, but continue to pursue
whatever leads come my way.
It is worth noting that this bibliography almost completes the bibliographic
record for the Singer family. A comprehensive bibliography of works by and
about I.J. Singer appears as an appendix to Anita Norich's The Homeless
Imagination In The Fiction Of Israel Joshua Singer. Bashevis' voluminous
output is recorded in David Neal Miller's Bibliography of Isaac Bashevis
Singer, 1924-1949 and in Roberta Saltzman's Isaac Bashevis Singer: A
Bibliography of His Works in Yiddish and English, 1960-1991. The missing
1950s will soon be filled in by Ms. Saltzman in a supplement to her book,
and she tells me that she will inform Mendele when it is available.
Comments, additions and corrections are most welcome. Please email them to
me at fjones@nypl.org.
Faith (Nomi) Jones
The New York Public Library
I. Works by Esther Kreitman
In Yiddish:
Novels:
Der Sheydim-Tants (Warsaw: Brzoza, 1936)
Brilyantn (London: W. and G. Foyle, 1944)
Short Stories (book publications and uncollected periodical
publications): "Beshas a seyder," (fun _Dimantn_), _A peysekh un perets
heftl_ (April 1944),11-13 [="Shtentls heftlekh" 51]; Yikhes (London:
Narod Press, 1949); "Opgefast Zikh" (pp. 125-128), "Zeygers" (129-133)
and "Blits" (pp. 133-137) in Vaytshepl Lebt: Loshn un Lebn Almanakh
London: Fraynd fun Yidish Loshn un Narod Pres, 1951. [All also appeared
in Yikhes]; "Afn Plas de la Republik: a skitse." Loshn un Lebn 78 (Yuli
1946): 35-38. "Der Vanderveg." Loshn un Lebn 281-5-6 (Yuni-Yuli 1955):
4-9.
Non-fiction: [Remarks], "Der shabes gevidmet der royter armey," _Yidish-
land_ (Mar 1943), 8 [= "Shtentls heftlekh" 38]; "A por verter tsum
dersheynen fun _Parizer shriftn_" _Dos khanike heftl_ (Dec 1945), 20-23
[= "Shtentls heftlekh"71]; "A Blik Afn Parizer Yidishn Kultur-Lebn."
Loshn un Lebn 97 (Februar 1948): 48-51. "Frume Gezangen Un Lirishe
Poemes Fun Yosef Hilel Levi." Loshn un Lebn 119 (Detsember 1949): 32-35.
Translations into Yiddish: Dickens, Charles. Vaynakht [A Christmas
Carol]. Warsaw: Farlag Helios, 1929, Shaw, George Bernard. Di Froy in
Sotsializm un Kapitalizm [The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism
and Capitalism]. Warsaw: Goldfarb, 1930.
In English:
Blitz and Other Stories [English translation of Yikhes]. Trans. by
Dorothee van Tendeloo. London: David Paul, 2004.
Deborah [English translation of Der Sheydim-Tants]. Trans. by Maurice
Carr. London: W. and G. Foyle, 1946; reprinted London: Virago, 1983 and
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984 with an introduction by Clive
Sinclair; reprint forthcoming New York: Feminist Press, 2004 and London:
David Paul, 2004 with an introduction by Anita Norich.
Diamonds [English translation of Brilyantn]. Trans. by Heather Valencia.
Forthcoming, London: David Paul, 2005.
"The New World." [English translation of "Di Naye Velt"]. Trans. by
Joshua A. Fogel. Yale Review 73 (Summer 1984): 525-32.
"The New World." [English translation of "Di Naye Velt"] Trans. by
Barbara Harshav. Lilith 16 n. 2 (Spring 1991): 10-12. Reprinted in
Found Treasures: Stories by Yiddish Women Writers. Edited by Frieda
Forman, Ethel Raicus, Sarah Silberstein Swartz and Margie Wolfe.
Introduction by Irena Klepfisz. Toronto: Second Story Press, 1994.
"The Relic." [English translation of "Atlasene Kapote"]. Trans. by
Morris Kreitman [Maurice Carr]. Jewish Short Stories of Today. Edited
by Morris Kreitman. London: Faber & Faber, 1938. [Original periodical
publication information unknown. Later collected in Yikhes].
"A Satin Coat." [English translation of "Atlasene Kapote"]. Trans. by
Ellen Cassedy. Beautiful as the Moon, Radiant as the Stars. Edited by
Sandra Bark. New York: Warner Books, 2003.
In other languages:
La Danse des Demons [French translation of Der Sheydim-Tants]. Trans.
by Carole Ksiazenicer and Louisette Kahane-Dajezer. (Paris: Des femmes,
1988).
Deborah: Narren tanzen im Ghetto. [German translation of Der Sheydim-
Tants]. Trans. Abraham Teuter. (Frankfurt: Alibaba Verlag, 1985).
Een meisje van niets. [Dutch translation of Der Sheydim-Tants.] Trans.
Willy Brill. (Amsterdam: Vassallucci, 2000).
"El Nuevo Mundo." [Spanish translation of "Di Naye Velt"]. Trans. by
Alicia Ramos Gonzales and J. Abad. Raices 44 (oto?o 2000): 37-39.
II. Works about Esther Kreitman
Primary material:
Esther Kreitman papers, YIVO. RG 341.
Joseph Hillel Levy papers, YIVO. RG 478.
I.B. Singer papers, Ransom Center, University of Texas. No catalog
number.
Biographic and bibliographic sources:
In Yiddish:
Untitled death notice. In column "Fun Khoydesh Tsu Khoydesh." Yidishe
Kultur, October 1954: 60.
Untitled death notice. In column "In der Yidisher un Hebreisher
literatur." Tsukunft October 1954: 396.
Untitled book announcement. Kiryat Sefer Vol. 15 no. 1 (Tamuz 5698/June
1938): 229.
Botoshansky, Yankev. "Tsvishn Yo Un Neyn [column]: Ester Kreytman, o'h."
Di [Buenos Aires] Prese Aug. 20, 1954: 4.
Carr, Maurice. "Kadish Mayn Muter Ester Kreytman." Loshn un Lebn 173 (
June 1954): 8-10. Reprinted with a brief introduction in the column
"Menshn, Shtet un Lender" as "Di Shrayberin Ester Kreytman Vert
Opgeshatst Fun Ir Zun, Moris Kar." [Buenos Aires] Yidishe Tsaytung Sept.
6, 1954: 4.
"Esther Kreytman." Davar 15 Kislev [December 10], 1954: 6.
"Ester Kreytman, o'h." [London] Yidishe Shtime June 18, 1954: 1.
Katz-Handler, Troim. "Di Shvester: Hinde-Ester Zinger-Kreytman."
Yidishe Kultur. May-June 1997: 47-49. In English as "Esther Singer
Kreitman, the Forgotten Singer." Jewish Currents May 2000: 20-21.
Kohn, Hilel. "Vegen Ester Kreytman o'h [letter to the editor]." [London]
Yidishe Shtime June 25, 1954: 4.
Kreitman, Esther. "Ester Kreytman's Notitsn Vegn Zikh Aleyn." [London]
Yidishe Shtime. July 9, 1954: 3. Notes submitted by Kreitman for an
entry in a never-published dictionary of Yiddish writers in England;
with an introduction by the newspaper's editors.
Leksikon fun der Nayer Yidisher Literatur s.v. "Ester Kreytman." Nyu-
York: Alveltlekhn Yidishn Kultur-Kongres, 1981: v. 8 col. 260-1.
Mirski, Rokhl. "Minyaturn: Tsu Der Nor Vos Geshtorbener Ester Kreytman,
Tsum Eybikn Ondenk." Loshn Un Lebn. June 1954: 11-16. Creative non-
fiction dedicated to Kreitman, but does not mention her.
Ravitsh, Meylekh. "Ester Kreytman, o'h." Keneder Adler August 2, 1954: 6.
Also published as "Ester Kreytman." Di [Buenos Aires] Prese Oct. 23,
1954: 5. Collected in his book Mayn leksikon vol. 4 pt. 2 (Montreal:
Komitet, 1982): 254-6. May also be the same item as "Intimer Portret
fun Ester Kreytman." [Tel Aviv] Letste Nayes Sept. [illegible date],
1954 (unconfirmed reference).
Singer, I.B. [pseud. Yitskhak Varshavski]. "Mayn Shvester." Forverts,
May 5, 1955. From serialized memoirs, "In Mayn Foter's Bezdn Shtub."
Later collected in Mayn Tatn's Bezdn Shtub. New York: Der Kval, 1956.
In English as In My Father's Court. Philadelphia: JPS, 1966].
Singer, I.B. "Mishpokhe: Materyaln Far An Oytobiografye." Serialized in
Forverts, Feb. 12, 1982 to Feb. 4, 1983. Appeared every Wednesday,
Thursday and Friday excluding September 1982. See in particular April
22-May 20, 1982 for episodes involving Kreitman.
Singer, I.B. "Gest In A Vinter-Nakht." Serialized in Forverts Feb. 14,
15, 21, 22, 1969: 2. In English as as "Guests On A Winter Night." In A
Friend of Kafka and Other Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux,
1970.
Singer, I.B. "Fun der Alter un Nayer Heym." Serialized in Forverts Sept.
21, 1963-Sept. 11, 1965. Appeared every Friday and Saturday. (Signed
Varshovsky). See in particular installments in April 1965.
Singer, I.J. Fun A Velt Vos Iz Nishto Mer. Nyu York : Farlag Matones,
1946. In English as Of a World That is No More. Trans. Joseph Singer.
New York: Vanguard Press, 1971.
In English:
Biographical note in Found Treasures: Stories by Yiddish Women Writers.
Edited by Frieda Forman, Ethel Raicus, Sarah Silberstein Swartz and
Margie Wolfe. Introduction by Irena Klepfisz. (Toronto: Second Story
Press, 1994): 357-9.
Biographical note in Deborah. (London: Virago, 1983).
Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia, 2nd edition (1998), s.v. "Kreitman,
Esther."
Carr, Maurice. "I remember mama [letter to the editor]." Lilith Winter
1992: 2.
Carr, Maruice. "My Mother, Hindele." Introduction by David Mazower.
Pakn-Treger 45 (Summer 2004): 44-49.
Fogel, Joshua A. Introduction to "The New World," by Esther Kreitman.
Yale Review 73 (Summer 1984): 525-6.
Horn, Dara. "Imagination as a Group Effort." Forward (English edition)
June 25, 2004: S2; online at Forward Newspaper Online. Edition of June
6, 2004. www.forward.com/main/article.php?ref=horn200406241154.
Accessed 6/25/04.
"In Memory of Four Jewish Writers." [London] Jewish Chronicle July 9,
1954: 10.
Jones, Faith. "Esther Kreitman." Jewish Women: A Comprehensive
Historical Encyclopedia. Jerusalem: Shalvi, 2004. Forthcoming.
Jones, Faith. "Esther Kreitman." Dictionary of Literary Biography.
Yiddish Literature volume. Forthcoming.
Katz-Handler, Troim. "Di Shvester: Hinde-Ester Zinger-Kreytman."
Yidishe Kultur. May-June 1997: 47-49. In English as "Esther Singer
Kreitman, the Forgotten Singer." Jewish Currents May 2000: 20-21.
"The Late Mrs. Kreitman." [London] Jewish Chronicle July 16, 1954: 26.
Obituary. "Mrs. Esther Kreitman." [London] Jewish Chronicle June 18,
1954: 30.
Ozick, Cynthia. "I.B. Singer's sister [letter to the editor]." Lilith
Summer 1991: 3.
Paul, David and Sylvia Paskin. Introduction to Blitz and Other Stories,
by Esther Kreitman. Trans. Dorothee van Tendeloo. London: David Paul,
2003.
Prager, Leonard. "Esther Kreitman." Yiddish Culture in Britain
(Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1990): 382-3.
Sinclair, Clive. Introduction to Deborah, by Esther Kreitman. Trans.
Maurice Carr (London: Virago, 1983).
Sinclair, Clive. "Esther, the silenced Singer." Los Angeles Times
Sunday, April 14, 1991: BR1, 11.
Sinclair, Clive. "Esther Singer Kreitman: the Trammeled Talent of Isaac
Bashevis Singer's Neglected Sister." Lilith Spring 1991: 8-9.
Singer, I.B. [pseud. Yitskhak Varshavski]. "Mayn Shvester." Forverts,
May 5, 1955. From serialized memoirs, "In Mayn Foters Bezdn Shtub."
Later collected in Mayn Tatns Bezdn Shtub. New York: Der Kval, 1956.
In English as In My Father's Court. Philadelphia: JPS, 1966.
Singer, I.B. "Mishpokhe: Materyaln Far An Oytobiografye." Serialized in
Forverts, Feb. 12, 1982 to Feb. 4, 1983. See in particular April 22-
May 20, 1982.
Singer, I.B. "Gest In A Vinter-Nakht." Serialized in Forverts Feb. 14,
15, 21, 22, 1969: 2. In English as as "Guests On A Winter Night." In A
Friend of Kafka and Other Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux,
1970.
Singer, I.J. Fun A Velt Vos Iz Nishto Mer. Nyu York : Farlag Matones,
1946. In English as Of a World That is No More. Trans. Joseph Singer.
New York: Vanguard Press, 1971.
Steinberg, A. "The Late Mrs. Kreitman [letter to the editor]." [London]
Jewish Chronicle July 2, 1954: 27.
In other languages:
Gonzales, Alicia Ramos. "Un Modelo Para Aaron: Esther Kreitman, O La
Tragedia De La Mujer Intelectual." Raices 42 (primavera 2000): 41-50.
Reviews and literary criticism:
In Yiddish
Botoshansky, Yankev. "Tsvishn Yo un Neyn [Column]: Ester Kreytmans
Shilderung fun a Nit Brilyantn Lebn." Di [Buenos Aires] Prese Jan. 19,
1945: 4.
Horn, Y. "Momentn [Column]: Literarisher Funk in der Mishpokhe Zinger."
[Buenos Aires] Yidishe Tsaytung Aug. 11, 1955: 4.
Levy, Joseph Hillel. "A Roman fun dem Yidishn Lebn in Antverpn:
'Brilyantn' Fun Ester Kreytman." Fraye Arbeter Shtime Aug. 24, 1945: 5,
7.
Levy, Joseph Hillel. "Shtrikhn tsu Ester Kreytmans Literarishe Portret.
" Loshn Un Lebn 118 (November 1949): 27-31.
Ravitsh, Meylekh. "'Vu Zenen di... Brilyantn-Shleyfer?' Af di Randen fun
Ester Kreytman's Roman 'Brilyantn.'" Keneder Adler Nov. 10, 1945: 7.
In English:
Clifford, Dafna. "From Diamond Cutters to Dog Races: Antwerp and London
in the Work of Esther Kreitman." Prooftexts 23 (2003): 320-37.
Grossman, Anita Susan. Review of Deborah. Midstream 32 n. 4 (April 1986)
: 62-3.
Goldman, Ari L. "The Long Neglected Sister of the Singer Family." New
York Times April 4, 1991: C15.
Goldreich, G. Review of Deborah. Congress Monthly 52 (January 1985): 18-
20.
Homberger, Eric. "Charles Reznikoff's Family Chronicle: Saying Thank
You and I'm Sorry." In Charles Reznikoff, Man and Poet. Edited by
Milton Hindus, pp. 327-342. Orono, Maine: National Poetry Foundation,
University of Maine at Orono, 1984.
I.B.S. [signed with initials only]. Review of Deborah. The [London]
Jewish Chronicle September 20, 1946: 11. It is unclear if this review
is by Bashevis.
Jones, Faith. "Esther Kreitman: Renewed Recognition of Her Work."
Canadian Jewish Outlook 38 n. 2 (Mar/Apr 2000): 17-18.
Kaganoff, P. Review of Deborah. Jewish Monthly 100 (October 1985): 34-5.
Norich, Anita. Introduction to Deborah. New York: Feminist Press, 2004.
Forthcoming.
Norich, Anita. "The Family Singer and the Autobiographical Imagination.
" Prooftexts 10 n. 1 (Jan. 1990): 97-107.
O'Brien, Kate. Review of Deborah. The [London] Spectator September 27,
1946: 320.
Pitock, Todd. "Forgotten Singer, Forgotten Song: Hinde Esther Singer
Kreitman." Jewish Affairs Winter 1993: 127-133.
Prawer, S.S. "The First Family of Yiddish." Times Literary Supplement
4178 (April 29, 1983): 419-20.
The Reader's Adviser, 14th ed. (1994), s.v. "Yiddish Literature."
Sinclair, Clive. Review of Blitz and other Stories by Esther Kreitman,
trans. Dorothee van Tendeloo. Times Literary Supplement. April 23, 2004:
19.
Stavans, Ilan. "The Other Singer." The New Republic Online. Edition of
May 5, 2004. http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=lost&s=stavans050504.
Accessed 5/05/04.
Strouse, E. Review of Deborah. Hadassah Magazine 66 (November 1984): 55-
6.
Wisse, Ruth R. The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey Through Language And
Culture. New York: Free Press, 2000.
Yudkin, L. Review of The Brothers Singer by Clive Sinclair, The
Brothers Ashkenazi by I.J. Singer, trans. by Joseph Singer, and Deborah
by Esther Kreitman, trans. by Maurice Carr. Critical Quarterly 27 n. 1
(Spring 1985): 90-2.
Zafer-Smith, Golda. Review of Blitz and Other Stories by Esther
Kreitman, trans. Dorothee van Tendeloo. Jewish Renaissance Spring 2004:
40-41.
In other languages:
Lewi, Henri. "Demons et Dibbouks." YOD: Revue des Etudes Moderns et
Contemporaines Hebraiques et Juives 31-32 (1990): 53-66.
Bashevis and I.J. Singer biographies/literary criticism
Selective list: only includes items with significant information not
otherwise available on Esther Kreitman
Carr, Morris. "My Uncle Yitzhak: A Memoir of I.B. Singer." Commentary
Dec. 1992: 25-32. Reprinted in Blitz and Other Stories. London: David
Paul, 2004. Carr, Morris. "My Uncle Yitshak." Jerusalem Post Magazine.
July 4, 1975: 5-6. Not identical to Commentary article above.
Hadda, Janet. Isaac Bashevis Singer: A Life. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1997.
Norich, Anita. The Homeless Imagination In The Fiction of Israel Joshua
Singer. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.
Sinclair, Clive. The Brothers Singer. London, New York: Allison :&
Busby, 1983.
Unconfirmed references
Most of these citations are taken from the Ephim Jeshurin cards at YIVO.
Fuchs, A. M. "Di Romantishe Proze-Shrayberin (tsu di Shloyshim fun
Ester Kreytman)." [Tel Aviv] Letste Nayes Aug. 6, 1954. Fuchs was
Kreitman's mekhutn.(Kreitman's son was married to Fuchs' daughter).
Herman, A. "A Troyerike Batsiung." Frayland [Paris]. July-Sept 1954: 16.
Kornhendler, Yekheskl." 'Brilyantn' fun Ester Kreytman." Yidish [Paris].
May-June 1946: 24.
Ravitsh, Meylekh. "Intimer Portret fun Ester Kreytman." [Tel Aviv]
Letste Nayes Sept. [illegible date], 1954. Possibly same item as in Di
Prese Oct. 23, 1954 and Keneder Adler Aug. 2, 1954 (see above).
Di Tsayt [London]. January 14, 1946: 1.
Valdman, M. "Undzere Aveydes - Ester Kreytman." Far Undzere Kinder
[Pariz]. Heft 25-26 (1954): 10.
--------------------------------------------------
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