Overview

First published in 1936, The People of Godlbozhits depicts the ordinary yet deeply complex life of a Jewish community, following the fortunes of one family and its many descendants. Set in a shtetl in Poland between the world wars, Rashkin’s satiric novel offers a vivid cross-section not only of the residents’ triumphs and struggles but also of their dense and complicated web of humanity. With biting humor and acerbic wit, Rashkin portrays the stratified society— the petty bourgeoisie, artisans, and proletariat—observing the crookedness at every level. The novel’s brisk and oftentimes lively Yiddish prose and its colorful and irascible cast of characters give readers a Yiddish Yoknapatawpha in all its tragic absurdity.

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9780815635529

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A major work capturing the penultimate hour of Polish Jewish existence. . . . It is both hilarious and gruesome. The act of translating [it] is an invaluable gift for mankind, for we are offered an inside view of a battered but still vibrant Jewish world that no one could have expected to be exterminated to its roots within three years.--Seth Wolitz professor emeritus, Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies, University of Texas

Author Information

Leyb Rashkin (pen name of Shol Fridman; 1903/4–1939) was born in Kazimierz Dolny,where he was the manager of a cooperative bank and of several hardware stores. The People of Godlbozhits was awarded a literary prize by the Polish Jewish PEN club. Jordan Finkin is a librarian at the Klau Library of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. He is the author of several books, including An Inch or Two of Time: Time and Space in Jewish Modernisms.

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