Ordinary Jews

A new translation of a modern Yiddish masterpiece.

Since its original publication in 1935, Ordinary Jews has come to be regarded as one of the masterpieces of Yiddish literature. In his portrayal of the lives of ordinary Polish Jews in a small provincial city at the end of the nineteenth century, Yehoshuah Perle offers a glimpse at a way of life that was already changing by the time of the novel's publication and would soon be brutally exterminated in the Holocaust. Through the eyes of the novel's young protagonist, Mendl Shonash, we are introduced to an intricate society of housewives, beggars, tailors, doctors, maidservants, tavern keepers, teachers, gravediggers, rabbinical students, and a whole range of people living close to the bottom of the social scale, as well as the various social hierarchies, shady dealings, pretensions, grotesqueries, and superstitions that color and order their world. Like a star whose light is visible to us light years after its creation, Ordinary Jews provides a glimpse into a particular culture and unique way of life that might otherwise be lost to history.

Yehoshue Perle (1888-1943) was born in Radom, Poland, and later moved to Warsaw, where he became active in Yiddish literary circles. In addition to Ordinary Jews (Yidn fun a gants yor), he also published poetry, short stories, literary sketches, criticism, and articles for Yiddish newspapers. One of Poland's most popular, prolific, and controversial Yiddish writers, he died in Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943. Shirley Kumove is a writer and translator on the subject of Yiddish-particularly its folklore and literature. She is the translator of several books, including, Drunk from the Bitter Truth: The Poems of Anna Margolin, also published by SUNY Press, which received the 2007 Award in Yiddish Literature and Translation from Yiddish presented by the Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Awards. She is also the author of More Words, More Arrows: A Further Collection of Yiddish Folk Sayings. She was born, educated, and makes her home in Toronto.