The Workmen's Circle of Michigan
Center for Jewish Culture and Social Justice
Book Group
Check out our calendar to see when our book group will be meeting next.
Our group will meet to discuss this book on Wednesday, August 25, 2010 at 7 p.m.
Barnes and Noble
B&N has ordered some advance copies of our book. It is also available online.
Current Book Scheduled for Discussion
Stempeniu: a Jewish Romance (in English translation)
Sholem Aleichem
The first work of Sholem Aleichem’s to be translated into English—this long out-of-print translation is the only one ever done under Aleichem’s personal supervision—Stempenyu is a prime example of the author’s hallmark traits: his antic and often sardonic sense of humor, his whip-smart dialogue, his workaday mysticism, and his historic documentation of shtetl life.
Held recently by scholars to be the story that inspired Marc Chagall’s “Fiddler on the Roof” painting (which in turn inspired the play that was subsequently based on Aleichem’s Tevye stories, not this novella), Stempenyu is the hysterical story of a young village girl who falls for a wildly popular klezmer fiddler—a character based upon an actual Yiddish musician whose fame set off a kind of pop hysteria in the shtetl. Thus the story, in this contemporaneous “authorized” translation, is a wonderful introduction to Aleichem’s work as he wanted it read, not to mention to the unique palaver of a nineteenth-century Yiddish rock star.
Our group will meet to discuss this book on Wednesday, August 25, 2010 at 7 p.m.
Barnes and Noble
Orchard Lake Road
6800 Orchard Lake Rd
West Bloomfield, MI 48322
248-626-6804
6800 Orchard Lake Rd
West Bloomfield, MI 48322
248-626-6804
Store Hours
Sun 9:00AM-8:00PM | Mon-Sat 9:00AM-10:00PM
Sun 9:00AM-8:00PM | Mon-Sat 9:00AM-10:00PM
B&N has ordered some advance copies of our book. It is also available online.
Current Book Scheduled for Discussion
Stempeniu: a Jewish Romance (in English translation)
Sholem Aleichem
The first work of Sholem Aleichem’s to be translated into English—this long out-of-print translation is the only one ever done under Aleichem’s personal supervision—Stempenyu is a prime example of the author’s hallmark traits: his antic and often sardonic sense of humor, his whip-smart dialogue, his workaday mysticism, and his historic documentation of shtetl life.
Held recently by scholars to be the story that inspired Marc Chagall’s “Fiddler on the Roof” painting (which in turn inspired the play that was subsequently based on Aleichem’s Tevye stories, not this novella), Stempenyu is the hysterical story of a young village girl who falls for a wildly popular klezmer fiddler—a character based upon an actual Yiddish musician whose fame set off a kind of pop hysteria in the shtetl. Thus the story, in this contemporaneous “authorized” translation, is a wonderful introduction to Aleichem’s work as he wanted it read, not to mention to the unique palaver of a nineteenth-century Yiddish rock star.