Memories and Scenes: Shtetl, Childhood, Writers
by Jacob Dinezon. Translated by Tina Lunson. (Jewish Storyteller Press, 242 pp. 19.95)

Jacob Dinezon (1856-1919) was a Yiddish novelist and short-story writer, as famous during his lifetime as Sholom Aleichem. Until now, his work has not appeared in English. Happily, we now have Memories and Scenes, Dinezon’s book of short stories, beautifully translated by Tina Lunson and excellently edited by Scott Davis.

Dinezon was a social realist, accurately depicting small-town Jewish life. With a cinematic eye, in 11 stories, he zeroes in on his characters, deftly telling fascinating stories while at the same time portraying the mores, attitudes, speech and foibles of Polish Jews young and old. In the superb story “Mayer Yeke,” we see how a boy’s great fear of the shtetl’s most righteous Jew, Mayer Yeke, turns to love and respect after he witnesses Mayer’s mitzva assisting the town drunk. “Sholem Yoyne Flask” depicts a mild-mannered tailor transformed by the liquor in his flask into a fiery defender of the town’s poor. Then something happens when a surprising discovery is made about his flask. “Motl Farber, Purimshpieler” introduces a housepainter who languishes during the winter when he cannot work, but at Purim he becomes the leader of a band of Purim players. When the troupe is arrested by the new Russian police chief, an unlikely “Esther” comes to their rescue.

Another moving and profound story is “Borekh,” after the name of the hero, an orphan living in the yeshiva. He doesn’t do well in Talmudic studies but has a talent for woodcarving, making dreidls, Purim groggers and toy animals for the children of the town.

One day he decides to leave the yeshiva and start a new life, with hopes of making a great Holy Ark, “one that people have never seen before.” And when he achieves that he will send it to his friend in the yeshiva, whom he knows will become a great scholar. Then Borekh leaves the yeshiva without saying goodbye.

Some of Dinezon’s autobiographical sketches are as engaging as his fiction. In “My First Work,” Dinezon relates the childhood experience of reading his first Yiddish novel, a Jewish version of Robinson Crusoe. He is so taken by the book, he writes his own adventure story.

It is not often that we are privileged to make a literary discovery of our own. With Dinezon’s Memories and Scenes, we happily encounter a master writer who deserves to be ranked with Sholom Aleichem and I.L. Peretz, whom he befriended and who admired him.