Isaac Leib Peretz (1852–1915)

I would be extremely curious to know what someone else—someone to whom these stories are completely foreign--would think. They are all about life among poor Russian Jews in the 19th century by one of the most famous of all Yiddish writers. I am Jewish (my grandparents all emigrated from Russia in the 19th century) and so these stories are particularly meaningful and also need no “translation.” I know in intimate detail almost everything he writes about. But I can’t help wonder whether they would be as evocative and as powerful to someone having no shared background. Some of the stories weren’t so good, but most were quite strong and a few even very moving.… (more)

A poor couple have nothing with which to celebrate the holiday of Passover in this atmospheric picture-book adaptation of a story from the late 19th/early 20th-century Yiddish-language author, I.L. Peretz. Then a mysterious magician comes to their village, and after performing some extraordinary tricks in the public square, seeks them out, asking to be their guest. Confiding that they have nothing, the couple is assured that their guest has everything necessary to celebrate the holiday, and they watch as he conjures all of the comfort and food they could dream of. This however, leaves them with a dilemma: should they trust this stranger's magic...?

We owned a copy of The Magician when I was a child, and I used to pore over it, endlessly fascinated by its simply told but intensely engrossing tale of magic and miracles, and its finely detailed etching-style artwork. There was always something just a little bit creepy about the eponymous magician, even if he turned out to be the Prophet Elijah - a force of good, rather than evil. Passover begins tonight at sundown, so I picked up this book today for a reread - the first in years - and found it every bit as enchanting and spooky as I remember. Recommended to picture-book readers looking for magical Passover stories, or for tales set in the Eastern European Jewish shtetls of the past.… (more)

I have not read the entire book. In addition to an introduction by Ruth R. Wisse and an afterword by Hillel Halkin, there are many of Peretz's short stories, his memoirs, a play and other works translated by several people.

There is a lovely anecdote in the introduction from Peretz' memoir:
"....once, when a guest demonstratively poured full beakers of water over his hands in the ritual washing before a meal, she said that he was 'frum oyf Ayzikl's ksesbn"---pious at Ayzikl's expense. Ayzikl was the water carrier who for a fixed fee maintained the household's supply of well water. The distinction his mother was making between excessive ritual piety and genuine religious sensitivity became a recurrent theme of Peretz's work.… (more)

Some quotes:

on "If Not Higher" from the Introduction:
"The inner anecdote about the rabbi Peretz took from a familiar Hasidic story, told in many variations, about Rabbi Moses Leib of Sasov; but the encasing figure of the Litvak is Peretz' addition. . . . The Litvak sees the saintliness of the Hasidic rabbi as a this-worldly saintliness; he comes to adore the rabbi as a moral hero rather than as an agent of God. Peretz does not actually link himself to the world of the Hasidic rabbi, he merely looks into it---with wonder and admiration , but still from a distance." [p. 15]
There is a version of the Rabbi Moses Leib story in Buber's 2-volume book of Hasidic stories. Eric Kimmel, in his picture book Even Higher, makes a similar point about the Litvak's appreciation of the rabbi.

in "Between Two Peaks," a Hasidic rebbe explains to his former, mitnagdic rabbi,
". . . your Torah, reacher, is a matter of rules. It is without compassion. No spark of charity! That is why there is no joy within it. Once cannot breathe deeply Iron laws, regulations of copper. A very lofty Torah; but it's for the scholar, the exceptional person." [p. 93]… (more)