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P«t« 14 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE August 3, 1979
Book review
Best of Sholom Aleichem
Helen & Jim Lee
Award winning
photographers
for Atlanta’s
Jewish family
simchas
since 1947
1164 N. Highland Avenue, N.E.
876-3716
reviewed by Joseph (.Inzer,
D.D.S
The Best Of Sholom Aleichem,
edited by Irving Howe and Ruth
Wisse. New Republic Books, 276
pp.. $12.50
Another Sholom Aleichem
revival has now begun. Laudatory
reviews of Irving Howe’s and Ruth
Wisse’s new anthology have
already appeared in The New York
Times Book Review Section—
front page—and in The New York
Review Of Books—lead article.
The new collection is already a
Literary Guild selection, and a
great deal more promotion is
bound to be generated as the
summer simmers on. Hopefully,
this drive should meet with the
greatest success.
Sholom Aleichem is certainly
entitled. He has been recognized
and praised all over the world by
the most renowned critics and is
everywhere acclaimed a master.
But in English he has never quite
completely caught on. Maybe this
latest new handsome grouping of
his best stories, translated so
superbly, will attract the great
untapped American-Jewish
audience ready for it now.
All America is hunting its roots,
and recent Jewish history is
certainly part of this nostalgic
mood. These stories by Sholom
Aleichem (pen name of Sholom
Rabinovitch, author of those
famous Tevya stories on which
“Fiddler on the Roof’ is based)
will go a long way to satisfy this
hunger, this thirst
Sholom Aleichem is funny. Not
for nothing was he called the
Yiddish Mark Twain. His“Mottel
the Cantor’s Son" will entrance
you if you are old or very young.
His story, “Eternal Life," will have
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This 1910 postcard printed in Warsaw shows a monument which the
city of Kasrilevke had planned to erect in honor of the 25th anniversary of
the publication of Shalom Aleichem's first novel.
you laughing and crying
simultaneously. “Two Anti-
Semites" will lift you right out of
your chair with its relevance And
"If I Were Rothschild" will bring
back that tremendous song-hit “If
I Were A Rich Man." All that is as
expected.
But mainly, Sholom Aleichem
will open up your eyes to the world
of your fathers, the world you
always wanted to know. The shtetl
The all-you- can- eat
brunch: $6.25.
Marriott’s spectacular Sunday bullet. It’s relaxed Sunday
Brunch with something for every member of the family
Cirits. f resh fruits and salads. And if vou want
something a little more sophisticated: caviar.
Bagels with cream cheese and cheese blintzes. !
Fried chicken and roast beef.
Marriott’s Sunday Brunch. An all-you-can-eat
buffet at a price-you-can-afford: just $6.25 for
adults, $4.25 for children.
When Marriott Joes it. they do it rieht. /
Atlanta .A\arriott Hotel at ft*rimt‘tc‘r Center
246 Perimeter ("enter Parkway, N.E., Atlanta, Ga. 30346 (404) 394-6500
has never been pictured so clearly.
Its life, its struggles with making a
living, its tragi-comic fate will
surround you, astonish you with
its idiom and its way. Here is the
real background you’ve wanted to
recapture. Here is the writer who
knew it like the fingers on his hand.
When Sholom Aleichem died in
1916 in New York, his casket was
followed by 250.000 people down
East Broadway. He was beloved by
all He was that celebrated Yiddish
writer who understood Jewish life
and Jewishness from Aleph to
Tough. Underneath it all he is not
merely humorous. Along with his
prankishness and jocularity there
throbs a love so deep that his
readers sense it intuitively, an
empathy reaching down to where it
hurts. This seriousness has
somehow been glossed over by
most of the critics who have
presented him in the past. Irving
Howe and Ruth Wisse have done
us a service in introducing Sholom
Aleichem as though anew. A live,
perceptive, modern master will
jump at you from every page.
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