Month: March 2019

His heart is already sore for his victim, but he is feeling his power over her for the first time, and it has gone to his head. Silly woman! He had never known how easy it was to frighten her.

“That comes of making light of the Torah!” he shouts, and breaks off. After all, she might come to her senses at any moment, and take up (he broom! He springs back to the table, closes the Gemoreh, and hurries out of the room.

“I am going to the house-of-study,” he calls out over his shoulder in 11 milder tone, and shuts the door after him.

The loud voice and the noise of the closing door have waked the sick child. The heavy-lidded eyes open, the waxen face puckers, and there is a peevish wail. But she, beside herself, stands rooted to the spot, and does not hear.

“Ha!” comes hoarsely at last out of her narrow chest. “So that`s it, is it? Neither this world nor the other. Hanging, he says, stoning, burning, beheading, strangling, hanging

He sits and “learns,” unconscious of the charged atmosphere; does not see her let the sock fall and begin wringing her finger-joints; does not see that her forehead is puckered with misery, one eye closed, and the other fixed on him, her learned husband, with a look fit to send a chill through his every limb; does not see her dry lips tremble and her jaw quiver. She controls herself with all her might, but the storm is gathering fury within her. The least thing, and it will explode.

That least thing has happened.

He was just translating a Talmudic phrase with quiet delight, “And thence we derive that—” He was going on with “three,—” but the word “derive” was enough, it was the lighted spark, and her heart was the gunpowder. It was ablaze in an instant. Her determination gave way, the unlucky word opened the flood-gates, and the waters poured through, carrying all before them.

“Derived,’you say, derived? Oh, derived may you be

To her right is the one grimy little window, to her left, the table. She is knitting a sock, rocking the cradle with her foot, and listening to him reading the Talmud at the table, with a tearful, Wallachian, singing intonation, and swaying to and from with a series of nervous jerks.

Some of the words he swallows, others he draws out; now he snaps at a word, and now he skips it; some he accentuates and dwells on lovingly, others he rattles out with indifference, like dried peas out of a bag. And never quiet for a moment.

First, he draws from his pocket a once red and whole handkerchief, and wipes his nose and brow, then he lets it fall into his lap, and begins twisting his ear locks or pulling at his thin, pointed, faintly grizzled beard. Again, he lays a pulled-out hair from the same between the leaves of his book, and slaps his knees. His fingers coming into contact with the handkerchief, they seize it, and throw a comer in between his teeth; he bites it, lays

Introduction

The Yiddish, or Judceo-German, dialect was employed for general -f- purposes some centuries before the beginning of what is known as Yiddish Literature. It is not until towards the end of the last century that a genuine Yiddish literature can be said to have existed. It came into being in Russia and Poland, and though, in Isaac Goldberg`s words, “it has wandered from nation to nation seeking a home,” most of the important living writers are now resident in the United States.

The Yiddish writers have developed a striking type of story, based to a certain extent upon modern Russian models, but at the same time rooted in the traditions of Jewish life. During the past few years Yiddish writers have produced many short stories of high merit.

The impulse that produced the modem Yiddish short story was due largely to Solomon Jacob Abromovitch and Isaac Loeb Peretz. A large number of writers followed in their footsteps, and it is from among