Multicultural Book Review: Jewish

Genre:  Folktale

Culture:  Jewish

Book:  Singer, Isaac Bashevis.  (1968). When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw.  New York:  Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Level/Age:  YA (ages 10-20)

Synopsis:  This is a collection of eight folktales by writer Isaac Bashevis Singer.  Some are retellings of stories that were handed down in his family matrilenially through generations, whereas others are complete inventions of the author’s imagination.  All the stories have a touch of the supernatural.  A common character is Shlemiel, a Jewish man who has varied adventures.  In Shrewd Todie & Lyzer the Miser, a sly but impoverished man outwits a stingy wealthy man.  In Tsirtsur & Peziza, a cricket and an imp venture out into the world to find love and happiness.  In Rabbi Leib & the Witch Cunegunde, the forces of good and evil collide as the witch tries to force the rabbi to marry her, and thus allow her to rule the world.  In Shlemiel, the Businessman, we follow poor Shlemiel as he makes bad business deals, one after another.  In Utzel & His Daughter Poverty, the protagonist (and thus the reader) gets a clear understanding of the nature of poverty, and its inverse relationship to work.  In Menaseh’s Dream, an orphaned boy enters a supernatural forest and falls fast asleep; dreaming of his family (past) and a girl named Channeleh (his future).  In When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw, the lazy Shlemiel finds out that it really is a small world.

Comparisons/Contrasts with traditional American/Western Culture:  The stereotype that Jews are economically privileged is dispelled in this collection of stories.  In each story, the protagonists are either poor and/or live humbly.  According to Locke (p. 187), Karl Marx characterized Jews as “shunning hard physical work,” another stereotype dispelled by this collection.  In these stories, hard work and wisdom are highly esteemed, while laziness is shunned.  Each story has a moral, and while these vary, the morals all perpetuate self-determination through hard work and the prioritization of education.  For example, the moral of Utzel & His Daughter Poverty, is “whatever you can do today, don’t put off till tomorrow” (Singer, p. 80).  

Response:  I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of Jewish folktales.  They were imaginative and refreshing.  Each of the eight stories surprised me in some way, either through a plot twist, a character development, or the resolution.  Each story also left me with a valuable moral and a lasting graphical depiction in my mind’s eye.  I feel I gained insight into the Jewish culture through these stories, and look forward to sharing them with my students and friends.

Suggested Extension Activities:  This is a superb book for the exploration of Jewish heritage.  I would use it in collaboration with a Language Arts class in a unit on the Holocaust, or with a Civics teacher in a unit on Jewish culture.  It will be a featured book in my library media center in May during Jewish American Heritage Month.