Stefan Zweig is experiencing a major comeback in the English-speaking world. The works of fiction of this Austrian Jewish writer (1881-1942) are being reissued in new translations, including his novels such as Beware of Pity and The Post-Office Girl; and director Wes Anderson says that his delightful new film, Grand Budapest Hotel, was "inspired" by Zweig's writings. And now a new biography, by George Prochnik, is appearing: The Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at the End of the World. This biography, which examines Zweig's last years, is the subject of a "LIVE from the NYPL" conversation on May 6 between George Prochnik and the Director of LIVE, Paul Holdengraber; this event is also the 2014 Joy Gottesman Ungerleider Lecture, with support from the Dorot Jewish Division.

Zweig grew up in turn of the century Vienna, a unique time and place. It was the capital of the Habsburg empire, that most ethnically mixed and jumbled of the old European empires. It seemed to provide a special home for the acculturated Jewish bourgeoisie, of which Zweig was a member. Even after the collapse of the empire at the end of World War I, Vienna retained to some degree a culturally Jewish character. It was only with the rise of European fascism and Nazism in the 1930s, and the Anschluss (annexation) of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, that this world finally and fully disappeared. By this time Zweig had been in exile for several years, moving to England and subsequently to the United States and eventually, Brazil.

Zweig was an enormously popular writer in the interwar years. He remembered of the 1920s, that despite all of Europe's difficulties, "Once more one could work, concentrate inwardly, apply oneself to things of the spirit. One might even dream again and hope for a united Europe." In his moving autobiography, World of Yesterday, he comments that he had learned, from a League of Nations report, "that I was then [in the 1930s] the most-translated author in the world (but true to my disposition I doubted the correctness of the report.)"

But Zweig's last years were difficult ones, years of wandering among places of exile. Through this time, he felt a deep isolation and depression. In his last home, in Brazil, he and his wife took their own lives. These last years are the ones that Impossible Exile focuses on.

In his last letter, he expressed "heartfelt thanks to this wonderful land of Brazil which afforded me and my work such kind and hospitable repose… nowhere else would I have preferred to build up a new existence, the world of my own language having disappeared for me and my spiritual home, Europe, having destroyed itself.

"But after one's sixtieth year unusual powers are needed in order to make a wholly new beginning. Those that I possess have been exhausted by long years of homeless wandering. So I think it better to conclude in good time and in erect bearing a life in which intellectual labor meant the purest joy and personal freedom the highest good on earth."

The Europe he had loved and worked in was now gone; he was in despair at its self destruction, and he was weary of exile. In George Prochnik's words (in an interview with National Public Radio), "It's critical… to realize how deeply he identified himself with Europe… When Zweig began to feel that the Europe that he had known was gone for good, he lost a lot of his motivation to keep going…

"This Europe that was so invested in aesthetics, in beauty, in civilized tolerance was very much gone by the time of his suicide. But he knew that, in letting that dream go, he was going to be also relinquishing his will to live." He adds that Zweig would be "astonished" to see the revival of interest in his work. But that is exactly what is happening in the United States, and we have LIVE and its Director, and George Prochnik, to thank for what will certainly be a wonderful program on May 6.

The following titles on our Recent Acquisitions Display are just a few of our new books, which are available at the reference desk in the Dorot Jewish Division. Catalog entries for the books can be found by clicking on their covers. Thank you to Christopher Zhao for his help with this post.

The New York Public Library’s Digital Collection includes Yiddish theater posters dating back more than a hundred years. These ephemeral pieces, with their bold titles, portraits of actors, and exuberant descriptions of plays, illustrate the dynamic Yiddish theater tradition in two major centers: New York and Buenos Aires. Together with hundreds of manuscripts, photographs, books, periodicals, and sheet music, they comprise one of the largest Yiddish theater collections in the world.

“Hell and Heaven”

The earliest posters utilize detailed illustrations, such as this one for  “Gehenem un gan-eydn” (literally, “hell and heaven”) by Abraham Goldfaden, starring Morris Finkel (pictured), who was also the director and business manager. This “famous comic opera” of January 8, 1891, at the Romanian Opera House in New York, promises new decorations, costumes and scenery. Sheet music for a duet from the opera was published in 1897. In a truly hellish twist, Finkel later shot and disabled his wife, Emma Thomashefsky Finkel (sister of Boris Thomashefsky) and then killed himself in a grisly real-life tragedy that shocked the Yiddish theater world.

“Positively the last production”

The placard below advertises “Kidesh ha-shem” [literally, “sanctification of the name”], a historical drama about Jewish martyrdom by the Yosef Latayner, an ever-prolific playwright known for the quantity, rather than the quality, of his work.  Starring Sigmund and Dina Feinman (pictured), the cast included other heavyweights like Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, Bertha Kalich, Sophia Carp, Rudolph Marks and [Max] Rosenthal. This was “positively the last production”, with performances scheduled for Friday and Saturday, October 30 and 31, [1891?].

Pioneering Prima Donna

The benefit advertised above was held on Thursday, January 5, 1893 at the Thalia (formerly Bowery) Theatre, a popular early Yiddish venue at 46-48 Bowery, whose gallery is home today to the Jing Fong Chinese restaurant. The beneficiary, Sophia Karp (1859-1904), was probably the first Yiddish actress, starting her career at age 16 with Abraham Goldfaden and being the first to sing the famous “Eli, eli, lomo azavtoni” (later recorded by Belle Baker). The brochure’s extremely Daytshmerish text (a prententious Germanic style of the time meant to convey sophistication)  proclaims Karp’s status as a prima donna of the “Yiddish-German” theater of New York and invites audience members to an (unnamed) opera. The benefit performance—both for actors and for charitable organizations—was a frequent occurrence and helped to guarantee an audience on weekdays.

For “Appreciators of True Art”

Speaking of Daytshmerish, this next poster for “Di zilberne hokhtsayt” [The silver wedding] use the German “hochzeit” instead of the Yiddish “khasene” for the word “wedding”. The text admonishes “appreciators of true art... not to miss this evening….which each person can only enjoy once in a lifetime”.

“Di zilberne hokhtsayt” was based on a popular Russian melodrama, Vtorai︠a︡ molodostʹ [Second Youth] by  P.M. Nevezhin and featured Boris Thomashefsky, Sophia Karp, the comic Berl Bernstein, Madame Epstein, Mr. Conrad, Dora Dubinski and Sabina Weinblatt.

The “Fereynigte Idishe Shoyshpiler Gezelshaft” [United Yiddish Actors’ Society] sponsored this benefit performance on January 30, 1894 for the play’s author/adapter, Yaakov Ter (1850-1935, pictured) who sold tickets at his home at 39-41 Suffolk Street. Ter, whose name stamp appears on the right, donated Yiddish theater ephemera to NYPL, along with Chonon Jacob Minikes and Boris Thomashefsky.

Rosh Ha-Shanah Openers of 1898

From Friday night and Saturday performances, to High Holiday openers, the Yiddish theater mirrored (and for some, replaced) the synagogue. The poster below contains the traditional Rosh Ha-Shanah wish “Leshone toyve tikoseyvu” [May you be inscribed for a good year] and uses rhymed verses, like the Rosh Ha-Shanah cards of the time, to describe the performances scheduled on the holidays.

Legendary actors Bertha Kalich (pictured) and David Kessler appeared in a performance called “the new and old Kol Nidre” by A. Sharkanski, named after the Yom Kippur prayer.  Bertha Kalich had already sung for Yom Kippur services in Bucharest, a terrifying and elating experience she describes in her memoirs in the newspaper Der Tog on July 8 and 11, 1925.  As for Sharkanski’s play, you can read it online and find associated sheet music by Louis Friedsell at NYPL and the Library of Congress.

The busy holiday season also included performances of “Shloyme ha-meylekh” [King Solomon] and “Hizkiyahu ha-meylekh, oder, di roze fun Kavkaz” [King Hezekiah, or, the Rose of the Caucasus] by another mass-market hack, “Professor” Moyshe Hurwitz; plus “Di Yudishe Vitse-Kenig” [The Jewish Viceroy]  by Sigmund Feinman and “Khanele di finisherin” [Khanele the Finisher]. Participating stars included Sigmund and Dina Feinman, Shmuel Tabatshnikov (Samuel Tobias), Hayne, Mary Wilensky, and Moshkovitsh.

For more Yiddish theater ephemera, visit these sites:

• Digital Collection, New York Public Library
• Digital Collection, Center for Jewish History
• Yiddish Theater, Museum of the City of New York

Read a previous blog post about NYPL's Yiddish theater collection: "The Yiddish Broadway and Beyond."

Learn more about the Digital Yiddish Theatre Project, an initiative involving NYPL.

As the World War I exhibit "Over Here: WWI and the Fight for the American Mind" in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building is just steps away from the Dorot Jewish Division, I wondered what in our collection would add to the story of World War I. What can we feature that supplements the wonderful display of American history shown in the exhibit?

I began looking at our collection to find materials that would attract a WWI history buff as well as anyone who casually passed through the exhibit. There is no single representation of early 1900s Jewish experience; Jewish soldiers served on both sides of the Great War. What I found most interesting was the mindset of Jewish soldiers fighting for Germany at the time. They fought to establish themselves and their identity as German Jews, fighting for a nation who would aim to eradicate their families in the decades to come. We see early signs of what was to come during the Great War, starting from the Judenzählung.

Judenzählung is German for "Jewish Census," which was conducted in October of 1916 by the German Military High Command. The purpose of it was to confirm the lack of patriotism of German Jews.

"In October 1916, when almost three thousand Jews had already died on the battlefield and more than seven thousand had been decorated, War Minister Wild von Hohenborn saw fit to sanction the growing prejudices. He ordered a "Jew census" in the army to determine the actual number of Jews on the front lines as opposed to those serving in the rear. Ignoring protests in the Reichstag and the press, he proceeded with his head count. The results were not made public, ostensibly to "spare Jewish feelings." The truth was that the census disproved the accusations: 80 percent served on the front lines."(Elon, Amos. The Pity of It All. pg. 338)

Many Jews at the time were striving to be accepted and sought to prove their patriotism by fighting for Germany on the front lines. Our collection also houses a book (in German) of all Jewish soldiers who died fighting for Germany during the Great War, "Die jüdischen Gefallenen des deutschen Heeres, der deutschen Marine und der deutschen Schutztruppen, 1914-1918."

While thousands of Jewish soldiers perished fighting for Germany, anti-semitism only grew after the war. In 1919, General Erich Ludendorff blamed the Berlin government and the civilian population for the German surrender in November 1918. He gave rise to the "stab-in-the-back" myth, blaming the republicans who overthrew the monarchy. Since many Jews supported the Weimar Republic and were thought to be unpatriotic due to previous claims by the Judenzählung, they became a natural scape goat. In response to accusations of the lack of patriotism, German Jewish veterans published this leaflet in 1920: 

The following titles on our Recent Acquisitions Display are just a few of our new books, which are available at the reference desk in the Dorot Jewish Division. Catalog entries for the books can be found by clicking on their covers.

The list features topics such as Old Testament commentary, a memoir of a childhood in Poland before WWII, museums and psychology, the Russian Revolution, the Dead Sea Scrolls, rabbinical history, Esther, Ba'al Shem Tov, Carribean Sephardim, health, Hungary, alcohol, Ukraine, ghettos, Dr. Suess, post-WWII Jewish writing, Mumbai, and gluten-free kosher cooking.

Nahum Stutchkoff (1893-1965) was a beloved Yiddish radio personality, playwright, lyricist and linguist who created dramas and commercials for WEVD radio and compiled a Yiddish rhyming dictionary and thesaurus. Once a household name among New York Yiddish speakers, he even appeared in ads for Beech-Nut Gum, Seagram’s Whiskey, and Planter’s High Hat Peanut Oil.

Before his radio days, Stutchkoff worked as a translator, actor, playwright and lyricist. He began by translating plays from various European languages into Yiddish, and later wrote his own. More than 20 of his (unpublished) plays were performed in America, including titles like “Oy, Amerike!” (Oy, America!), “Di ganevte” (The Lady Thief) and “Ven Blinde Libn” (When Blind People Love). Many of these playscripts survive in his extensive archives in the Dorot Jewish Division, New York Public Library, and in the Library of Congress.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Stutchkoff’s lyrics were published in sheet music composed by Sholom Secunda, Joseph Rumshinsky, Abe Ellstein, and Phillip Laskowsky. The lyrics appeared in transliteration in the music, with a separate Yiddish text of the original. A far cry from today’s standard Yiddish, the transliterations were, like many of their day, frequently riddled with typos and inconsistencies. These texts provide a fascinating look at Yiddish dialect and pronunciation, the use of English in Yiddish, and creative rhymes.

One of his biggest hits was “In mayne oygen biztu shehn” (In my eyes you are beautiful), with lyrics co-written by Molly Picon and music by Joseph Rumshinsky. Picon (as “Sadie”) and Leon Gold (as “Michail”) sang this duet in “Ganeyvishe libe”, (“The Love Thief”), Rumshinsky and Jacob Kalich’s “underground operetta” by Benjamin Ressler, performed at Molly Picon’s Folks Theatre, 12th Street and 2nd Avenue in 1931.

The New York Times reviewed the show on January 19, 1931, noting that the “sprightly” Picon “would blithely sing with the utmost seriousness the most absurd lyrics.”

The chorus included phrases like:

In mayne oygn bistu sheyn, sheyn vi di velt / In my eyes you are as beautiful as the world

Ikh ze in dir nit keyn khesorn, ales mir gefelt / I see no flaw in you, I like everything

Meg farrisn zayn bay dir dos neyzele / You may have a dirty nose

Megstu hobn seykhl vi an eyzele / You may have the sense of a donkey

In mayne oygn bistu sheyn, sheyn vi di velt / In my eyes you are as beautiful as the world

The song’s melody was later used for the WEVD radio theme song - you can hear a parody of it in this documentary from the Yiddish Radio Project.

Another popular song with lyrics by Stutchkoff and music by Abe Ellstein came from Stutchkoff’s 1929 operetta with the same name, “Az der rebe vil” (If the rabbi wants to). Ludwig Satz, a well-known Yiddish actor, recorded this comical title track on “Ludwig Satz at the Yiddish Theatre, Volume 2,” describing a wonder rabbi who performs ridiculous miracles, such as turning a duck into a tomcat.

NYPL has the original play script for “Az der rebe vil” (without music) and Jane Peppler recently published sheet music and recorded the song based on her research with the Itzik Zhelonek collection.

“Brivelekh” (Letters) was another song featuring Stutchkoff’s lyrics, with music by Sholom Secunda, from the play “Shtief Shvester” (Stepsisters) by Louis Freiman, performed at the Rolland Theatre in Brooklyn in 1931. Here, Yiddish tragedienne Jennie Goldstein sang of a heartbroken, abandoned lover who finds comfort in her old love letters. Stutchkoff honed his talent for melodrama with creations like “Bay tate-mames tish” (“Around the family table”), a stage play and long-running radio show sponsored by the B. Manischewitz Matzo Co. NYPL’s Performing Arts Library even has a few surviving recordings of the show.

Speaking of Manischewitz, who could forget Stutchkoff’s famous Manischewitz Matzo jingle, where the matzah is “always fresh and always crunchy and snaps on your teeth”?  This popular song was composed by Sholom Secunda, Stutchkoff’s predecessor on the Jewish Children’s Hour, and sung by the talented young participants on WLTH radio.  According to Henry Sapoznik of the Yiddish Radio Project, Stutchkoff was famous for his amazingly descriptive commercials for matzo, among other products, and you can find some on their website.

In recent years, Stutchkoff’s work has found a new audience through the award-winning Yiddish Radio Project, and through adaptations presented at The New York Public Library, National Yiddish Theater-Folksbiene and the New Yiddish Rep Theatre.

In 2014, the Forward Association (former owner of WEVD radio) published a collection of linguistic radio episodes, “Mame-Loshn” (mother tongue) edited by Leyzer Burko, based on NYPL’s Stutchkoff archives. It quickly became a Yiddish bestseller.

Want to experience Stutchkoff “live”? On Wednesday, March 18, 2015, at 7 pm, the Congress for Jewish Culture will present a program of readings and music at the National Opera Center, 330 7th Avenue (near 29th St.), 7th floor.

Research Links:

• Nahum Stutchkoff exhibit - Yiddish Radio Project
• Nahum Stutchkoff’s Yiddish Play and Radio Scripts in the Dorot Jewish Division, New York Public Library. Amanda Seigel. Judaica Librarianship, vol. 16
• Mame-Loshn, by Nahum Stutchkoff, edited by Leyzer Burko (in Yiddish)
• The Stations That Spoke Your Language: Radio and the Yiddish-American Cultural Renaissance(Library of Congress Symposium Proceedings)

Historical Jewish Periodicals Online

• View our list of 1500+ microfilmed Jewish periodicals at NYPL
• Visit our classic catalog to search for additional titles

Contemporary Periodical Indexes

• Electronic Periodicals in Jewish Studies
  Available at the Library or from home with your Library card and PIN.
• Current Print Periodicals in Jewish Studies
  Nearly 500 international titles are available in the reading room of the Dorot Jewish Division.

Apply today for your free library card!

Need help? Contact us at 212-930-0601 or dorotjewish@nypl.org

The following titles on our Recent Acquisitions Display are just a few of our new books, which are available at the reference desk in the Dorot Jewish Division. Catalog entries for the books can be found by clicking on their covers.

The following new acquisitions are also available to read online by authenticating with your library card number.

Through University Press Scholarship Online (UPSO)

Memories of Absence: How Muslims Remember Jews in Morocco
Aomar Boum. Stanford University Press, 2013.

Glory and Agony: Isaac's Sacrifice and National Narrative
Yael S. Feldman. Stanford University Press, 2010.

Roads to Utopia: The Walking Stories of the Zohar
David Greenstein. Stanford University Press, 2014.

Through Oxford Scholarship Online

Profiling Jewish Literature In Antiquity: An Inventory, From Second Temple Texts to the Talmuds
Alexander Samely. Oxford University Press, 2013.

Remembering Biblical Figures in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods: Social Memory and Imagination
Diana Vikander Edelman. Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2013.

E-book

A Child of Christian Blood: Murder and Conspiracy in Tsarist Russia: the Beilis Blood Libel
Edmund Levin. Schocken Books, 2014.

The following titles on our Recent Acquisitions Display are just a few of our new books, which are available at the reference desk in the Dorot Jewish Division. Catalog entries for the books can be found by clicking on their covers.

The following new acquisitions are also available to read online by authenticating with your library card number.

Through Project Muse

Against Autobiography: Albert Memmi and the Production of Theory
Lia Nicole Brozgal, 2013

A Final Reckoning: A Hannover Family's Life and Death in the Shoah
Ruth Gutmann and Kenneth Waltzer, 2014

In the Shadow of Hitler: Alabama's Jews, the Second World War, and the Holocaust
Dan J. Puckett, 2014

Through Oxford Scholarship Online

Are You Not a Man of God?: Devotion, Betrayal, and Social Criticism in Jewish Tradition
Tova Hartman and Charlie Buckholtz, 2014

A Journey of Two Psalms: The Reception of Psalms 1 and 2 in Jewish and Christian Tradition
Susan Gillingham, 2014

Through University Press Scholarship Online (UPSO)

Diasporas of the Mind: Jewish and Postcolonial Writing and the Nightmare of History
Bryan Cheyette, 2014

Here’s a brief guide to Jewish books online, including reference works, religious texts and literature. For periodicals, see our Quick Guide to Jewish Periodicals.

Encyclopedias and Reference

Jewish Texts Online

General Online Book Sites

Digital Jewish Collections (Texts and Images)

In honor of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) Pride Month in June, the Dorot Jewish Division recognizes the achievements of LGBT Jews in history and in the Library’s collection. Here are some key moments and figures.

Jewish Pioneers in LGBT Rights

Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) was a German Jewish doctor and author who fought to decriminalize homosexuality in Germany.

Jeanne Manford, mother of a gay son, was a co-founder of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) in 1973.

Miriam Ben-Shalom, an openly lesbian sergeant in the U.S. Army, spent decades fighting for LGBT rights in the military.

Retired senator Barney Frank of Massachusetts served as the first openly gay U.S. senator, coming out in 1987.

Joy Ladin, a poet, author, and Yeshiva University professor, is the first openly transgender person employed at an Orthodox Jewish institution.

Harvey Milk was a pioneering leader and one of the the first openly gay people elected to public office, and was assassinated a year after taking office.

Faygele ben Miriam, also known as John Singer, together with Paul Barwick, attempted to get the first same-sex marriage license in Seattle in 1971.

Author Leslea Newman’s often-banned Heather Has Two Mommies was the first children’s book to portray lesbian families in a positive way.

Edie Windsor successfully sued the U.S. government for recognition of her Canadian marriage to her late wife, Thea Spyer, ultimately overturning the “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA) with her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan.

LGBT Achievements in Judaism

Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, established in 1973, is the world’s largest LGBT synagogue, led by Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum since 1992.

Rabbi Rebecca Alpert and Dr. Judith Plaskow have advocated through scholarship for feminist and LGBT-inclusive liturgy and ritual.

Rabbi Steven Greenberg, educated at Yeshiva University and author of Wrestling with God and Men, is considered the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi.

Trembling Before G-d, a 2001 film by Sandi Simcha Dubowski, was the first film to explore the lives of LGBT Orthodox Jews.

Rabbi Reuven Zelman became the first openly transgender rabbinical student in 2003, and in 2006, Rabbi Elliot Kukla became the first openly transgender rabbi, both at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

Congregation Shaar Zahav of San Francisco published Siddur Shaar Zahav, the first Jewish LGBT prayer book, in 2009.

In 2015, Rabbi Denise Eger became the first openly gay or lesbian rabbi to head the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

On the shelves

Evelyn Torton Beck edited Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology and published other works in Jewish Studies and Women’s Studies.

Warren J. Blumenfeldwrites and speaks about social justice, intersection of oppressions, and bullying prevention..

Kate Bornsteinwrites, speaks and performs about transgender and gender identity issues.

Judith Butler’s work concerns feminism, gender, and queer theory.

Lillian Faderman’s works highlight lesbian history in America.

Leslie Feinberg was an author and pioneer in the field of transgender studies.

William Finn, a composer and writer, creates works for the American musical theater.

Warren Hoffman’swork addresses Jewish and queer identity and race.

Jonathan Ned Katz’sworks deal with gay history and African-American Studies, and NYPL’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture holds some of his manuscripts and research materials.

Melanie Kaye-Kantrowitz’s works focus on Jews and whiteness; racism, history (including women’s history), anti-Semitism and class.

Tony Kushner’sworks address homophobia, AIDS, and racism through a dramatic lens.

Adrienne Rich was a renowned poet, essayist and scholar.

David Schneer’swork concerns Jewish history and culture, while Caryn Aviv’swork deal with sociology and anthropology; together, they edited the anthologies Queer Jewsand American Queer, Now and Then.

Want to learn more?

Check out these recommended books and resources on LGBT Jewish topics.

Visit NYPL’s Digital Collections for historical portraits of LGBT writers, artists and activists, including those pictured here.

How did a Jewish writer, who wrote exclusively in Polish and who died in the Holocaust, become practically a cult figure of mid-20^th century literature? From Drohobych (in transliteration from Ukrainian; the Polish form is Drohobycz): a small city, once in the province of Galicia in the Austro-Hungarian empire, until 1918; then the Second Polish Republic between the world wars; then occupied first by the Soviets in 1939-41, and subsequently by the Germans in 1941-44; after that, in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic; and now a city of independent Ukraine. This was the home town of Bruno Schulz (1892-1942), a Jewish-Polish writer whose life, death, and afterlife have become something of a literary myth. “Myth” and words derived from it, in fact, are most often applied to his work. In the standard critical biography, Jerzy Ficowski’s Regions of the Great Heresy,​ the linkage of Schulz and “myth” is made evident. Even a quick look through Ficowski’s work turns up, besides many uses of the basic words, “myth” and “mythology,” one finds “mythic,” “mythologizer,” “mythological,” “mythical,” “mythologically,” “mythologization,” “mythologizing.” This is not only Ficowski’s invention; the idea of “myth” is one generally accepted in connection with Schulz and his writing and art.

Schulz led a life that was provincial, but he was also, after his “discovery,” deeply involved in the literary world of Poland. He taught arts and crafts in high schools, frequently referring to his “depression” over the burden this placed on his creativity. He was an artist before he was a writer; he was “discovered” by the Polish literary world only in the mid-1930s, only a few years before the outbreak of the Second World War. During the occupation by the Germans, he was forced into the Drohobych ghetto with the rest of the city’s Jews. But he also found a “protector” of a sort, a local Gestapo head, who admired his art and made use of his skills. This did not help him on 19 November 1942, when he was killed by the Germans during a “wild (that is, unplanned) murder action,” and buried in an unmarked grave. The exact site has never been identified.

The notion of “the book” which holds all of life’s mysteries is one key to Schulz’s fiction. Here begins the first story in his second and last collection of stories, Sanatorium under the Sign of the Hourglass:​

I am simply calling it The Book without any epithets or qualifications, and in this sobriety there is a shade of helplessness, a silent capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental, for no word, no allusion, can adequately suggest the shiver of fear, the presentiment of a thing without name that exceeds all our capacity for wonder. How could an accumulation of adjectives or a richness of epithets help when one is faced with that splendiferous thing? Besides, any true r​eader—and this story is only addressed to him—will understand me anyway when I look him straight in the eye and try to communicate my meaning. A short sharp look or a light clasp of his hand will stir him into awareness, and he will blink in rapture at the brilliance of The Book. For, under the imaginary table that separates me from my readers, don’t we secretly clasp each other’s hands? (“The Book”).

Schulz’s legacy can be found in in the works of a number of leading Jewish writers. Cynthia Ozick’s T​he Messiah of Stockholm​ (1987) is probably the outstanding novel extending Schulz’s legacy; he doesn’t actually appear, but his purported last writing, the manuscript of “The Messiah,” does. (This manuscript has never been found and survives as a hoped-for dream among followers of Schulz. It either never existed, or was hidden but still not found, or perhaps destroyed during the Second World War.) He also appears in the Israeli novelist David Grossman’s novel, S​ee under: Love (​1986). Perhaps the most original use is Jonathan Safran Foer’s, T​ree of Codes​(2010). T​he publisher's note states: “In order to write T​he Tree of Codes,​ the author took an English language edition of Bruno Schulz's T​he Street of Crocodiles​ and cut into its pages, carving out a new story." This doesn’t make for readability, but it’s certainly an unusual treatment!

In Schultz’s Letters and Drawings,​we find his views on his first book (known as ​Cinnamon Shops, ​Sklepy cynamonowe, ​in Poland, and T​he Street of Crocodiles ​in the United States):

To what genre does Cinnamon Shops​ belong? How should it be classified? I think of it as an autobiographical narrative. Not only because it is written in the first person and because certain events and experiences from the author’s childhood can be discerned in it. The work is an autobiography, or rather a spiritual genealogy, a genealogy par excellence in that it follows the spiritual family tree down to those depths where it merges into mythology, to be lost in the mutterings of mythological delirium. I have always felt that the roots of the individual spirit, traced far enough down, would be lost in some matrix of myth. This is the ultimate depth; it is impossible to reach farther down.

Writing to a potential Italian publisher for Cinnamon Shops, ​Schulz said: “This book represents an attempt to recreate the history of a certain family, a certain home in the provinces, not from their actual elements, events, characters, or experiences, but by seeking their mythic content, the primal meaning of that history” (also in Letters and Drawings)​.

It seems best to conclude with the last story in Sanatorium.​ The father is a mythic character, struggling with the world, and disappears at the last, in the form of a cooked crab.

But my father’s earthly wanderings were not yet at an end, and the next installment—the extension of the story beyond permissible limits—is the most painful of all. Why didn’t he give up, why didn’t he admit that he was beaten when there was every reason to do so and when even Fate could go no farther in utterly confounding him? After several weeks of immobility in the sitting room, he somehow rallied and seemed to be slowly recovering. One morning, we found the plate empty. One leg lay on the edge of the dish, in some congealed tomato sauce and aspic that bore the traces of his escape. Although boiled and shedding his legs on the way, with his remaining strength he had dragged himself somewhere to begin a homeless wandering, and we never saw him again. (“Father’s Last Escape”).

In 2014, the Library bought a first edition of Schulz’s Sanatorium, ​now a great rarity. In 2015, meanwhile, we acquired an edition of a work by the person who served as something of a “muse” for Schulz, encouraging his work: Dvoyra Fogel (Deborah Vogel), A​kacje kwitna: Montaze​ (The Acacias Bloom: Montages).

Bibliography

Bruno Schulz, T​he Street of Crocodiles​(published originally in Polish under the title S​klepy cynamonowe/Cinnamon Shops),​ translated by Celina Wieniewska, 1977).

Bruno Schulz, Sanatorium under the Sign of the Hourglass (Sanatorium pod klepsydra,​ translated by Celina Wieniewska, 1978).

Jerzy Ficowski, ed., translated by Walter Arndt with Victoria Nelson, L​etters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz with Selected Prose​(Harper and Row, 1988).

Jerzy Ficowski, Regions of the Great Heresy: A Biographical Portrait,​ translated and edited by Theodosia Robertson (Norton, 2003).

The following titles on our Recent Acquisitions Display are just a few of our new books, which are available at the reference desk in the Dorot Jewish Division. Catalog entries for the books can be found by clicking on their covers.

The following new acquisitions are also available to read online by authenticating with your library card number.

E-book

50 Children: One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission Into the Heart of Nazi Germany
Steven Pressman

Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict
John B. Judis

In Paradise: A Novel
Peter Matthiessen

Jerusalem Unbound: Geography, History, and the Future of the Holy City
Michael Dumper

Why the Germans? Why the Jews? Envy, Race Hatred, and the Prehistory of the Holocaust
Götz Aly

Through Project Muse

The Clandestine History of the Kovno Jewish Ghetto Police
Introduction by Samuel D. Kassow. Translated and edited by Samuel Schalkowsky. Anonymous members of the Kovno Jewish Ghetto Police

Difference of a Different Kind: Jewish Constructions of Race During the Long Eighteenth Century
Iris Idelson-Shein

Jewish Interpretation of the Bible: Ancient and Contemporary
Karin Hedner Zetterholm

Jewish Sanctuary in the Atlantic World: A Social and Architectural History
Barry L. Stiefel

Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story
Maxim D. Shrayer

Use these resources to find Yiddish music online and in libraries and archives: search for sheet music, audio recordings, catalogs, and print anthologies.

Yiddish Sheet Music Online

Audio Recordings Online

Libraries and Archives: Shared Catalogs

• ArchiveGrid - Shared archival database for collections worldwide
• Digital Europeana - Shared European library catalog
• Judaica Europeana - Shared European Judaica project
• WorldCat - Shared worldwide library catalog

Library and Archival Collections Search tips:

1. Use the subject heading “Songs, Yiddish”
2. Search in Yiddish (using the Hebrew alphabet) as well as transliteration (try UYIP for more information about Yiddish word processing)
3. Vary your spelling—most publications use non-standard orthography
4. Delve into archival finding aids to uncover deeper content; song titles and lyricists/composers may not be immediately apparent

Popular Yiddish Song Collections (Print)

Available at the reference desk in the Dorot Jewish Division.

Need additional help? Contact us at dorotjewish@nypl.org or view the full Yiddish Research Bibliography.

The following titles on our Recent Acquisitions Display are just a few of our new books, which are available at the reference desk in the Dorot Jewish Division. Catalog entries for the books can be found by clicking on their covers.

The following new acquisitions are also available to read online by authenticating with your library card number.

E-books

Between Friends by Amos Oz
Little Failure: A Memoir by Gary Shteyngart
Rav Kook: Mystic in A Time of Revolution by Yehudah Mirsky

Through Project Muse

Aesthetics of Sorrow: The Wailing Culture of Yemenite-Jewish Women
Dear Mendl, Dear Reyzl: Yiddish Letter Manuals From Russia and America
Jerusalem: Conflict & Cooperation in A Contested City
The New Life: Jewish Students of Postwar Germany

Through University Press Scholarship Online (UPSO)

Jewish Spain: A Mediterranean Memory
Mediterranean Enlightenment: Livornese Jews, Tuscan Culture, and Eighteenth-century Reform

Through Oxford Scholarship Online

Pétain's Jewish Children: French Jewish Youth and the Vichy Regime, 1940-1942

The following titles on our Recent Acquisitions Display are just a few of our new books, which are available at the reference desk in the Dorot Jewish Division. Catalog entries for the books can be found by clicking on their covers.

The following new acquisitions are also available to read online by authenticating with your library card number.

Through Project Muse

Colonial Jerusalem: The Spatial Construction of Identity and Difference in A City of Myth, 1948-2012 by Thomas Philip Abowd

That Pride of Race and Character: The Roots of Jewish Benevolence in the Jim Crow South by Caroline E. Light

Tradition and the Formation of the Talmud by Moulie Vidas

We Called Him Rabbi Abraham: Lincoln and American Jewry, A Documentary History

Through Oxford Scholarship Online

Becoming Ottomans: Sephardi Jews and Imperial Citizenship in the Modern Era by Julia Phillips Cohen

E-books

Jabotinsky: A Life by Hillel Halkin

That Pride of Race and Character: The Roots of Jewish Benevolence in the Jim Crow South by Caroline E. Light

The Treblinka Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance

Find out how to get information about your Jewish roots. Links to vital records, Holocaust resources, name origins, and Jewish genealogy collections.

Vital records

Birth, death, immigration, census, military service, civil marriage, and school records.

Holocaust

Find information about individuals, communities, and their fate during the Holocaust.

Name Origins

Jewish Genealogy Collections

General Works

Plays

Biography

Images

Archives

Need more?

• For Yiddish theater music, see “Finding Yiddish Music: A Quick Online Guide”
• For periodicals, see “A Quick Guide to Jewish Periodicals”

The following titles on our Recent Acquisitions Display are just a few of our new books, which are available at the reference desk in the Dorot Jewish Division. Catalog entries for the books can be found by clicking on their covers.

Bible And Hellenism: Greek Influence On Jewish And Early Christian Literature edited by Thomas L. Thompson

Early Jews And Muslims Of England And Wales: A Genetic And Genealogical History by Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman

Edith Bruck In The Mirror: Fictional Transitions And Cinematic Narratives by Philip Balma

Exit Berlin: How One Woman Saved Her Family From Nazi Germany by Charlotte Bonelli 

Festivals Of Faith: Reflections On The Jewish Holidays by Norman Lamm

Grandma Elmaleh's Moroccan Cookbook by Lisa Elmaleh Craig

Harry Fischel, Pioneer Of Jewish Philanthropy: Forty Years Of Struggle For A Principle And The Years Beyond

How To Accept German Reparations by Susan Slyomovics (also available through Project Muse)

In God's Shadow: Politics In The Hebrew Bible by Michael Walzer

May God Remember = Yizkor: Memory And Memorializing In Judaism edited by Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman

Poetic Trespass: Writing Between Hebrew And Arabic In Israel/Palestine by Lital Levy

Postwar Jewish Displacement And Rebirth, 1945-1967 edited by Francoise S. Ouzan

Question Of Tradition: Women Poets In Yiddish, 1586-1987 by Kathryn Hellerstein (also available through Stanford Scholarship Online)

Scripture And Law In The Dead Sea Scrolls by Alex P. Jassen

Theology Of Migration In The Abrahamic Religions edited by Elaine Padilla

Yiddish Songs From Warsaw 1920-1934: The Itzik Zhelonek Collection

The following titles on our Recent Acquisitions Display are just a few of our new books, which are available at the reference desk in the Dorot Jewish Division. Catalog entries for the books can be found by clicking on their covers.

Becoming Un-Orthodox: Stories Of Ex-hasidic Jews by Lynn Davidman

Ben-Gurion: Father Of Modern Israel by Anita Shapira (also available as e-book)

Disappeared Science: Biographical Dictionary Of Jewish Scholars From Bohemia And Moravia by Michal V. Šimůne (ed.)

I Thought I'd Never Taste This Again by Mercedes Castiel

Jewish Culture In Early Modern Europe by Richard I. Cohen (ed.)

Jewish-Greek Tradition In Antiquity And The Byzantine Empire edited by James K. Aitken

Maimonides And The Shaping Of The Jewish Canon by James A. Diamond

Making Of Jewish Revolutionaries In The Pale Of Settlement by Inna Shtakser

Mame-loshn fun Naḥum Sṭuṭshḳoṿ: redaḳṭirṭ fun Leyzer Burḳo

Migrating Tales: The Talmud's Narratives And Their Historical Context by Richard Kalmin

Our City!: Jewish Vienna -- Then To Now by Werner Hanak-Lettner (published)

Poverty, Charity And The Image Of The Poor In Rabbinic Texts From The Land Of Israel by Yael Wilfand

Scots Jews: Identity, Belonging And The Future photographs by Judah Passow

Spanish Attitudes Toward Judaism by Adolfo Kuznitzk

Tales Of Three Cities: Urban Jewish Cultures In London, Berlin, And Paris (c. 1880-1940) by Tobias Metzler

Traditional Society In Transition: The Yemeni Jewish Experience by Bat-Zion Eraqi Klorman

Urban Origins Of American Judaism by Deborah Dash Moore (also available as e-book through Project Muse)

Vocabulary Of Desire: The Song Of Songs In The Early Synagogue by Laura S. Lieber