Recommended Reading Selected Bibliography

Ten Works You Should Read

Recommended by Professor Jeremy Dauber

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1. “Chava”

The finest of the Tevye stories, which are the finest stories of Sholem Aleichem’s whole oeuvre.

Read “Chava” along with seven other tales of Tevye the Dairyman in Hillel Halkin’s supple and intelligent English translation: Halkin, Hillel. Tevye the Dairyman and The Railroad Stories. Schocken: New York, 1987.

2. “The Enchanted Tailor”

It’s not a folk tale; it’s not a ghost story; but it’s not not those things, either.

3. “On Account of a Hat”

One of Sholem Aleichem’s finest stories. It’s a brilliant tale, born of an old joke and transformed, through authorial artistry, into a meditation on the underlying uncertainties of modern Jewish life.

4. “Londons”

Our first encounter with Menakhem-Mendl, the notoriously optimistic (and inexpert) businessman, and one of Sholem Aleichem’s most famous creations. His wife Sheyne-Sheyndl has equally good lines, if not better.

5. “The Man from Buenos Aires”

A nasty little encounter on a railroad with a man who is not who he seems to be…or maybe he is.

6. “Dreyfus in Kasrilevke”

How do Jews talk politics? This is one way.

7. “From the Fair”

Sholem Aleichem never completed his autobiography; but what we do have is a now-largely hidden treasure (which is, not entirely coincidentally, a leading motif in lots of his works, including this one).

8. “The Guest”

A holiday story and a story about children – two of Sholem Aleichem’s specialties – wrapped in one. A third specialty: the twist ending.

9. “A Tale of A Thousand and One Nights”

Set not in some fantasy land, but in Jewish Eastern Europe in the throes of World War I, the tales of survival the story’s Scheherazade relates chill to the bone.

10. “Haman and Mordechai”

A bizarre little effort about what happens when the two Biblical characters­—the real ones—appear in Yiddishland.

Selected Bibliography

Secondary works to read for further exploration of Sholem Aleichem

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