Audiobook · read by volunteers
Jewish Children (Yudishe Kinder)
שלום עליכם Sholem Aleichem (1859–1916)
Read by Adrian Praetzellis · 19 chapters · 7 h 36
About the book
Written from a child’s point of view, these stories are not for children. They portray the life of a small Jewish village in Russia in the late nineteenth century, with its schoolmasters, its festivals, its poverty and its dreams. A boy reads from the Song of Songs and cannot forget the words. A family prepares Passover in a village far from the city. A young child watches the grown-ups and does not quite understand what he sees. Sholem Aleichem mixes humour and sorrow with a master’s touch, so that you laugh and are moved in the same moment. Some of the stories are funny, some are poignant and some are disturbing, and together they bring a vanished world to life. A moving and often hilarious portrait of childhood in another time.
Introduction
Sholem Rabinovich, who wrote under the name Sholem Aleichem, was born in Pereiaslav, in present-day Ukraine, in 1859 and died in New York in 1916. He wrote in Yiddish, and he is regarded as one of the founders of modern Yiddish literature. He is best known for the stories about Tevye the Dairyman, which later inspired the musical Fiddler on the Roof. His name means peace be upon you, a common Jewish greeting.
Jewish Children, or Yudishe Kinder, is a collection of stories told from the perspective of children. They appeared in the early years of the twentieth century and were translated into English by Hannah Berman, in a version dated 1922. Despite the title, the book is not a collection for young readers. Its young narrators see more than they can express, and the contrast between their innocence and the world of the adults gives the stories their humour and their pain.
This recording consists of nineteen stories and lasts about seven and a half hours. It is read by a single LibriVox volunteer, who describes it as the world of their grandparents. Listeners who enjoy short stories, the history of Eastern Europe or the traditions of Jewish life will find much to enjoy. The tone moves from the comic to the tragic, and the voices of the characters stay with you long after the last story has ended.
Many of the stories are told in the first person by a boy who sees the world with sharp but innocent eyes. Their humour often masks a deeper sadness, and the final effect is of a community remembered with love. The English translation keeps the rhythm of speech, and the reader’s voice brings the village to life.
Public domain
שלום עליכם Sholem Aleichem died in 1916: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text