Bashevis Singer
Do you know any Yiddish folktales?
Is there any Yiddish folktale books or sites or just Jewish folktales of any kind really, out there? I can’t seem to find any.
(I already know (and love) stories by Issac Bashevis Singer, btw lol)
Thanks!
“Radiant Days, Haunted Nights” by Joachim Neugroschel is a whole book of them. I think my favorite from the book is about a blind man who refuses to believe the moon is real, because he can’t touch it; and he insists everyone else must be insane to believe in something they can’t touch.
Another famous story, not in the book, is the story of the Corpse Bride: a fellow was about to get married, and out in the woods he was nervously rehearsing his vows and placing the ring on the girl’s finger. He practiced on a branch, which turned out to be the mummified arm of a woman’s corpse, murdered and buried in the forest. She rose from the dead and announced that now, by the law, they were wed since he’d said the vows and put the ring on her. Upset, understandably, the boy objected; they returned to town to ask the rabbis to determine whether this was a valid marriage or not. Eventually, the rabbis decided that, though technically his reciting the vows and placing the ring on her finger did constitute a valid marriage, they nevertheless also decided that the dead could not marry the living. And so, the man’s fiancee went and reburied the girl, promising to live a happy life in her place.
Isaac Bashevis Singer “Who knows?”
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