Description
Book SynopsisPeninnah Schram, widely regarded as one of the great Jewish storytellers of our generation, has collected and retold sixty-four delightful Jewish folktales to create Jewish Stories One Generation Tells Another. Ms. Schram, who believes that stories form "the link between the generations," helps forge that link with this book, ensuring that these stories will continue to live and breathe in the modern world. The life force animating these tales is almost tangible. The printed words seem to vibrate, as if the author possessed the voices of various tellers and lent their lilting tones and ripe inflections to the printed page. Furthermore, the laughter, sobs, and delighted cries of countless listeners also echo in these pages. Schram, who has written a thoughtful, informative introduction for each story, demonstrates on every page her belief that the stories "connect to our lives." And when the lifelike characters woven into Schram's magic tapestry suffer or enjoy the fates they most deserve, we rejoice, secure in their storybook world?a world where justice, however incomprehensible, is always done, and where we attain happiness by living in accordance with Jewish law and in harmony with the world's natural order. Jewish Stories One Generation Tells Another abounds in a gentle wisdom that presses itself upon our complex and often self-contradictory lives, infusing us with patience, tolerance, and hope. We identify with the kings and princes, fools and beggars, heroes and leaders, villains and witches of yesteryear because, though our lives are vastly different from theirs, we share their moral choices and experience their dilemmas. Schram joins Jewish storytellers throughout the ages, linking past to present and preserving an invaluable legacy for generations yet unborn.
Trade ReviewInspirational and distinctly moralistic in nature, these tales [deal] with a gentle kind of wisdom, one that imposes itself on complex and often self-contradictory lives. These are marvelous, well-told stories. * Journal Of The Royal Musical Association *
Jewish Stories is an anthology of 64 folk tales selected from Schram's extensive repertoire. They represent a variety of genres: fables and parables; midrashic elaborations on biblical characters or verses; hasidic stories; fairy tales transposed into a Jewish setting (a Jewish Cinderella story, for example); women's wisdom told over needlework or laundry; and riddles, proverbs, and jokes expanded into tales. Schram introduces each of the stories with an explanation of its origins—both where she first heard the story and its literary and folkloristic antecedents. * Hadassah Magazine *
This collection of 64 folk tales, myths, and morality tales is a vivid medley of Jewish culture, customs, and history. . . . The work is both entertaining and scholarly. * The New York Times *
