Yiddish Folktales

by Beatrice Weinreich

  Part One

  Epigraph: Yekhiel Shtern (1950), pp. 95–96, paraphrased.

  Part Two

  Epigraph: Benyomin Yankev Bialostotzky (1962), p. 164, paraphrased.

  Part Three

  Epigraph: Frieda Waletsky, Yidisher folklor (1954), vol. 1, p. 56. She may well have been referring to tale no. 36, “The Snake Bridegroom.”

  1. Adin Steinsalz, Beggars and Prayers: The Tales of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. New York: Basic Books, 1985, p. xvii.

  2. Max Weinreich, “Yiddish, Knaanic, Slavic: The Basic Relations” in For Roman Jakobson. The Hague: Mouton, 1956, p. 628.

  3. Jacob Shatzky, “Mitskevitsh un di yidishe folks-mayse” in YIVO bleter (1934) vol. 6, p. 186.

  Part Four

  Epigraph: Max Grunwald, “Märchen u. Sagen …” Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für jüdische Volkskunde (1898), vol. 5, no. 1, p. 1.

  1. Sholem Rabinovitsh (Sholom Aleichem), 1955, The Great Fair: Scenes From My Childhood, Noonday Press, New York, 1955, p. 184. This is Tamara Kahana’s translation of her grandfather’s childhood memoirs, originally titled Funem yarid: lebnsbashraybungen.

  Part Five

  Epigraph: Benyomin Yankev Bialostotzky (1962) p. 166, paraphrased.

  1. Yehoshua-Khone Ravnitski (1932), pp. vii–viii.

  2. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1974), p. 298; and Ezekiel Lifschutz (1952), pp. 43–83.

  3. In a class on Yiddish folklore at U.C.L.A. in 1948, Dr. Max Weinreich offered as a possible explanation for Khelm’s status as archetypal Jewish town of fools the fact that the first story of the creation of a golem in Eastern Europe was set in Khelm. In addition to Khelm, there were other towns of fools: the Galician town of Linsk, for example, played the same role in Congress Poland.

  4. Toby Blum-Dobkin (1977) offers a structural analysis of this genre.

  5. Other regions had their favorite local wags. Perhaps less well known are the following pranksters who appear in Yiddish folktales: Mordkhe Rokover, Shayke Fayfer, Shmerl Snitkever, Yosl Marshelik, Shloyme Loydmirer, and Leybele Gotsvunder. See A. Holdes (1960), pp. 6–7.

  6. Meir Noy (1968) speaks of three types of cante fables. In the first, a tune is bought by a naïve fellow, as in our examples; the second focuses on the origin of a famous melody, as in our nonhumorous “The Rebbe’s Melody” (no. 111) and “The Dibbuk Melody of Tolne” (no. 168); the third is about a person who wants an opportunity to sing, as in “The Clever Little Tailor” (no. 104). Cante fables have been collected in Byelorussia, Rumania, and eastern Galicia.

  Part Six

  Epigraphs: Moyshe Meylman, Berestetshka, Poland, 1925, YIVO Archive, V.A. 32:11; Zborowski and Herzog (1952), p. 91.

  1. For more information on Hasidic legends as they appear in America, see Jerome Mintz (1968).

  2. See L. Holomshtok (1930) for the work of a Soviet scholar who describes many of the Hasidic tales as a form of social protest against various authority figures (e.g., tax-collectors, local squires, landlords, anti-Semitic priests).

  3. An-ski (1925), vol. 5, p. 264.

  4. According to An-ski, the typical Jewish hero of post-Biblical legend is not a brave warrior, as in other cultures, but rather a scholar. See An-ski (1925) vol. 15, pp. 33ff.

  5. Hayyim Schauss, The Lifetime of a Jew. Cincinnati: Union of Hebrew Congregations, 1950, p. 106.

  6. Abraham Joshua Heschel, (1950), pp. 88–89.

  7. Hayyim Schauss, The Lifetime of a Jew, p. 106.

  8. Most of the items are in Yiddish and were collected in Eastern Europe. See Pipe (1942).

  Part Seven

  Epigraphs: Naftoli Gross (1955) p. 9, paraphrased; Zborowski and Herzog (1952), p. 91, paraphrased.

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