In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

B. Untranslated Yiddish and Hebrew Novels about America The list of novels in Yiddish and Hebrew about America that have not been translated is considerable, and it contains works of genuine and lasting value, as well as, of course, some shlock. Readers literate in Yiddish should seek out the works of Morris Jonah Haimowitz, who wrote Oyfn Veg [On the way] (1914) in the Viennese style of Arthur Schnitzler and Stefan Zweig; David Ignatov, the hero of whose debut novel In Keslgrub [In whirlpool] (1918) dreams of a healthy rural alternative to the crushing atmosphere of New York City; B. Demblin, whose novels include Vest-Said [West side] (1938); Baruch Glasman, whose Lender un Lebns [Lands and lives] (1937), stars an immigrant shoemaker in the United States and the family he abandons in the Old Country; and S. Miller, whose short stories, many of which are set among Yiddish-speaking residents of Los Angeles, were gathered into numerous volumes. In a genuine miracle of modern technology, all of these long out-of-print works can be easily purchased online from the National Yiddish Book Center’s digital archive. A number of Yiddish writers whose works have been translated—Sholem Aleichem, Sholem Asch, David Pinski, Isaac Raboy, the Singer brothers, and Chaim Grade—are covered in this guide. Others who have been translated but penned only a few short stories about America are not included; it should be noted, though, that L. Shapiro’s The Cross (2007), Abraham Reisen’s The HeartStirring Sermon (1992), and Chaver Paver’s Clinton Street and Other Stories (1974) each contain a handful of American stories, and a few anthologies have collected and translated Yiddish stories about America, including Max Rosenfeld’s Pushcarts and Dreamers: Stories of Jewish Life in America (1967) and New Yorkish and Other American Yiddish Stories (1995), and Henry Goodman’s The New Country: Stories from the Yiddish about Life in America (1961, 2001). Yiddish readers should consult Amerike in Yiddishn Vort (1955), a massive anthology of relevant texts. There is an even more pervasive lack of translation into English of Hebrew fiction about America: distressingly, I could not find a single worthwhile Hebrew novel available in English translation, set in the United States, to cover in this guide. That doesn’t mean worthwhile books on the subject don’t exist, though. Simon Halkin published modernist narratives of immigrant life under the titles Ye’hiel Ha-Hagri [Yechiel the immigrant] (1928) and Ad Mashber [Until the crisis] (1929). Y. D. Berkowitz, Sholem Aleichem’s son-in-law and Hebrew translator, wrote Yemot Ha’Mashia [In the days of the Messiah] (1937) in both Hebrew and Yiddish; it details the experiences of a group of American Jews traveling by sea to the Yishuv, the Jewish settlement in pre-independence Palestine. Reuben Wallenrod’s Hebrew fiction about the American experience appeared in both novels—his first, Ki Fanah Yom [When day is set] (1946) takes place at a resort in the Catskills—and short stories, some of which are collected in Bein Homot New York [Inside the walls of New York] (1952). Samuel L. Blank also published relevant story collections, including Bi’me’arbolet Ha’hayim [In the whirlpool of life] (1954). In addition to these mid-century works, younger Israeli authors have explored the close connections and frequency of relocation between their homeland and 173 Appendix B American Jewish Fiction the United States, in more recent novels such as Razia Ben-Gurion’s Netishah [Abandonment] (1987), Maya Arad’s Sheva Midot Ra’ot [Seven moral failings] (2006), and Ayelet Ben-Ziv’s Ya’efet [Jetlag] (2006). Assaf Gavron’s Moving (2003), another contemporary example, features a few undocumented Israelis working as furniture movers in New York and is now being made into a film; its author has translated Jonathan Safran Foer’s novels into Hebrew. David Ehrlich deals with life in the United States in a few of the stories in his Ha-Bekarim shel Shelishi va Khamishi [Tuesday and Thursday mornings] (1999) and Kahol 18 [Blue 18] (2003), while the most popular of the younger generation of Israeli fiction writers, Etgar Keret, has also set a few of his stunning, imaginative short pieces in America. Some of these are available in English translation in his collections The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God (2004), The Nimrod Flipout (2006), and The Girl on the Fridge (2008). C. Bibliographic Resources The following bibliographies and historical surveys of American Jewish fiction and literature provide...

Share