When Hershele, a poor but brilliant yeshiva student, is invited for a weekly charity meal by a rich widow, he comes face-to-face with Mirele, the widows pretty, bright, and strong-willed daughter. As the two innocently come to know each other, they fall in love. Are they "bashert"-soul mates destined to be together? Or will rigid class differences, shtetl politics, and a ruthless marriage broker tear them apart? This bittersweet love story, written in 1891, provides a vivid and insightful exploration of our great-grandparents lives in 19th century Eastern Europe: how they lived, how they...

Memories and Scenes: Shtetl, Childhood, Writers is the first English translation of eleven autobiographical short stories by the 19th century Eastern European Yiddish writer, Jacob Dinezon (1852-1919). A beloved and successful Jewish novelist who championed Yiddish as a literary language, Dinezon befriended and mentored almost every major literary figure of his day, including the three classic writers of modern Yiddish literature, Sholem Abramovitsh (Mendele Moykher Sforim), Sholem Aleichem, and Isaac Leybush Peretz. Though Dinezon's place in the development of Yiddish literature has been...

Collection of stories and recollections by Jacob Dineson. The English translation is available at Createspace as "Memories and Scenes"

YOSELE, Jacob Dinezons short novel published in 1899, exposed in stark detail the outmoded and cruel teaching methods prevalent in the traditional cheders (Jewish elementary schools) of the late 1800s. Writing in Yiddish to reach the broadest Jewish audience, Dinezon described with all the pathos of Charles Dickens, the sad, poverty-stricken life of a bright and gentle school boy whose violent treatment at the hands of his teacher, parents, and society is shocking and painfully heartrending. The outrage that resulted from the storys initial publication produced an urgent call for reform and...