The Further Adventures of Menachem-Mendl: (New York―Warsaw―Vienna―Yehupetz) (Library of Modern Jewish Literature (Hardcover)) - Hardcover

Sholem Aleichem created the original Tevye the Dairyman of Broadway and Hollywood fame. Aliza Shevrin has translated and published five novels and three collections of children's short stories by Sholem Aleichem as well as short stories and a novel by I. B. Singer. She was a Rockefeller Scholar in Bellagio, Italy.

The original Menachem-Mendl, an epistolary novel translated into English in 1969, tells of the adventures of a Jewish everyman, the product of 2000 years of struggle and survival. His schemes, machinations, and hare-brained attempts to overcome the crushing poverty of the time are detailed in letters to his decidedly less optimistic wife, Sheyne-Sheyndl, in Kasrilivka (Aleichem's name for any poor Jewish town in Eastern Europe before World War I). The first volume of his adventures ends when, after much failure, Menachem-Mendl departs for America and a new life. The current epistolary volume, newly translated with great skill, finds Menachem-Mendl in Warsaw after a disastrous stay in America. He has a new job on a Warsaw newspaper, writing of the politics, opinions, and people of the time. His letters to his wife are published in the newspaper, but her sharp-tongued responses (which appear in the book) are not. This delightful romp through the rich Jewish life of Warsaw of the early 20th century also follows the intrigues of a wandering husband. Aleichem, whose characters are household names to generations of readers of Yiddish and world literature, is a consummate storyteller. Highly recommended. Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, MD
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