Opatoshu, Joseph, (In Polish Woods - In Poylishe Velder [אין פוילישע וועלדער] [hc, New York: M. N. Mayzel, 1921; translated from the Yiddish by Isaac Goldberg, Jewish Publication Society, 1938; reprinted by Literary Licensing LLC, 2012] 978-1258453060 [pb, Literary Licensing LLC, 2012] 978-1258454425 [Generally regarded as his masterpiece. Set during the decades preceding the Polish uprising of 1863, it follows a young Jewish intellectual torn between Hasidic tradition, Polish nationalism and modern secular culture. The novel paints an extraordinarily rich portrait of Jewish life in rural Poland while examining the attraction of Polish revolutionary ideals. The book became one of the most widely read historical novels in Yiddish literature and went through numerous editions and translations.
International · Fiction author
Joseph Opatoshu
Joseph Opatoshu (born in 1886 near Mlawa, Poland, then part of the Russian Empire, died in 1954 in New York City) [ - His father came from a Hasidic family but embraced the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah), giving Joseph both a traditional Jewish education and access to Polish secular schooling. Emigrated to New York in 1907, where he became associated with the Di Yunge (“The Young Ones”) literary movement, which emphasized artistic quality over ideological or didactic writing. He wrote for the Yiddish press throughout his career, while publishing novels, historical fiction, and hundreds of short stories.
Opatoshu, Joseph, (Romance of a Horse-Thief - A Roman fun a Ferd-Ganef (אַ ראָמאַן פֿון אַ פֿערד-גנבֿ). [1912 novella translated from the Yiddish by David G. Roskies and appearing as a chapter in Ruth Wisse, A Shtetl and Other Novellas [hc, Behrman House, 1973] and reprinted by Wayne State UP, 1986] 978-0814318485 [See related film]. [- follows a charismatic Jewish horse thief who lives beyond the boundaries of respectable Jewish society. Rather than presenting crime simply as moral failure, Opatoshu portrays the outlaw world as possessing its own codes of loyalty, courage, and tragedy. This depicts pre-modern rural Jewish criminality, showing that criminal figures existed inside Jewish society long before modern organized crime and were not just an external aberration. See also the entry on the 1971 movie version in the companion Filmography.]
Opatoshu, Joseph, (A Day in Regensburg [lead novella - A ṭog in Regensburg un Eliyahu Boḥer (א טאג אין רעגענסבורג און אליהו בחור) – originally published in 1933 - hc, transl. from the Yiddish by Jacob Sloan Opatoshu, together with 20 additional short stories, Jewish Publication Society, 1968] B0006BULJI [A historical novella set in sixteenth-century Germany. The narrative depicts Jewish life under severe legal restrictions while exploring relations between Jews and Christians in the Holy Roman Empire.
Opatoshu wrote numerous other works, including treatments of Jewish immigrant life and anti-black racism in America and a novel about Rabbi Akiva, Bar Kochba and the revolt against Rome. These and many other of his significant works—such as his 1863 Polish uprising sequels or his American novel Lost People (Ferloyrene Menshn)—remain untranslated or restricted to academic anthologies. He is noted for exploring the porous boundaries between respectable society, poverty, crime, and rebellion. His fiction broadens the history of “Jewish crime literature” beyond the twentieth-century urban gangster to include rural thieves, smugglers, and other social outcasts. In that respect, Opatoshu stands almost alone among major Yiddish novelists. While writers such as Bergelson, Der Nister, or Grade occasionally depict deception, black markets, or morally compromised individuals, Opatoshu repeatedly places criminal or marginal figures at the center of his narratives and treats them with literary seriousness rather than as mere villains. – ChatGPT]