A01=Sholom Aleichem
Author_Sholom Aleichem
Category=FB
Category=FN
Category=FW
Creative Works
Creative Writing
Edelkeyt
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Fiction
Horse Thief
Jewish History
Jewish Holiday
Jewish Literature
Jewish Studies
Literature
Love Story
Love Triangle
Passover
Russian Pale of Settlement
Social Outcast
Translated Literature
Twentieth Century Literature
Yiddish Literature
Product details
- ISBN 9780827615151
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 Sep 2021
- Publisher: Jewish Publication Society
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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This first English translation of Sholom Aleichem’s rediscovered novel, Moshkeleh the Thief, has a riveting plot, an unusual love story, and a keenly observed portrayal of an underclass Jew replete with characters never before been seen in Yiddish literature.
The eponymous hero, Moshkeleh, is a robust chap and horse thief. When Tsireleh, daughter of a tavern keeper, flees to a monastery with the man she loves-a non-Jew she met at the tavern-the humiliated tavern keeper’s family turns to Moshkeleh for help, not knowing he too is in love with her.
For some unknown reason, this innovative novel does not appear in the standard twenty-eight-volume edition of Sholom Aleichem’s collected works, published after his death. Strikingly, Moshkeleh the Thief shows Jews interacting with non-Jews in the Russian Pale of Settlement-a groundbreaking theme in modern Yiddish literature. This novel is also important for Sholom Aleichem’s approach to his material. Yiddish literature had long maintained a tradition of edelkeyt, refinement. Authors eschewed violence, the darker side of life, and people on the fringe of respectability. Moshkeleh thus enters a Jewish arena not hitherto explored in a novel.
The eponymous hero, Moshkeleh, is a robust chap and horse thief. When Tsireleh, daughter of a tavern keeper, flees to a monastery with the man she loves-a non-Jew she met at the tavern-the humiliated tavern keeper’s family turns to Moshkeleh for help, not knowing he too is in love with her.
For some unknown reason, this innovative novel does not appear in the standard twenty-eight-volume edition of Sholom Aleichem’s collected works, published after his death. Strikingly, Moshkeleh the Thief shows Jews interacting with non-Jews in the Russian Pale of Settlement-a groundbreaking theme in modern Yiddish literature. This novel is also important for Sholom Aleichem’s approach to his material. Yiddish literature had long maintained a tradition of edelkeyt, refinement. Authors eschewed violence, the darker side of life, and people on the fringe of respectability. Moshkeleh thus enters a Jewish arena not hitherto explored in a novel.
Sholom Aleichem, the pen name of Sholom Rabinowitz (1859–1916), became the most widely read writer in the history of Yiddish literature by the end of the nineteenth century. His stories about Tevye the dairyman became the basis for the hit musical, Fiddler on the Roof. Curt Leviant is the prize-winning author or translator of more than twenty-five books. His latest novel is Me, Mo, Mu, Ma & Mod; or, Which Will It Be, Me and Mazal, or Gila and Me?
