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A semi-autobiographical portrait of the original Yentl and “an important contribution to the vastly neglected genre of feminist Yiddish literature” (Booklist).
In this autobiographical novel—originally published in Yiddish as Der Sheydim Tanz in 1936—Esther Kreitman lovingly depicts a world replete with rabbis, yeshiva students, beggars, farmers, gangsters, seamstresses, and socialists as seen through the eyes of the girl who served as Isaac Bashevis Singer’s inspiration for the story “Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy.”
Barred from the studies at which her idealistic rabbi father and precocious brother excel, Deborah revels in the books she hides behind the kitchen stove, her brief forays outside the household, and her clandestine attraction to a young Warsaw rebel. But her family confines and blunts her dreams, as they navigate the constraints of Jewish life in a world that tolerates, but does not approve, their presence.
Forced into an arranged marriage, Deborah runs away on the eve of World War into a world that would offer more than she ever dreamed...
This edition includes memorial pieces by Kreitman’s son and granddaughter.
—Library Journal starred review
"Kreitman's opus is an important contribution to the vastly neglected genre of feminist Yiddish literature." —Booklist
"Above all, the sheer story-telling skill of Kreitman's prose reminds us how past worlds are evoked through detail, practical reminders of daily lives and customs which no longer exist."
—The Jewish Quarterly
"I do not know of a single woman in Yiddish literature who wrote better than she did."
—Isaac Bashevis Singer
"The reappearance of this novel will be welcomed by students of Jewish and Yiddish literature and 20th-century feminist writing. Summing up: Recommended."
—Choice
"Kreitman's writing is clear, marvelously descriptive and occasionally evocative. . . A wonderful introduction by Ilan Stavans and comprehensive afterword by Anita Norich draw the parallels with Esther Kreitman's life and place the book in historical perspective."
—Jewish Book World
"[Kreitman] clearly has the same deep, haunting literary storyteller's gifts as her siblings."
—Lilith
"This new edition, with its timely critical reappraisal of Kreitman's place in her famous family as well as [The Dance of the Demons's] place in Yiddish literature, marks a long overdue effort to translate the rest of Kreitman's work, and is still, after so many decades, a haunting and haunted book."
—The Jewish Reader
"[A] truthful and delicate portrait."
—Canadian Jewish News