The Pagan Rabbi and Other Stories

Last updated
First edition (publ. Knopf) The Pagan Rabbi.jpg
First edition (publ. Knopf)

The Pagan Rabbi and Other Stories (1971) is the second book and first collection of stories published by American author Cynthia Ozick. [1] "The Pagan Rabbi" and "Envy; or, Yiddish in America", along with an interview with the author, were later collected as an audio book in 1989 read by Ron Rifkin and Mitchell Greenberg.

Contents

Stories

Synopsis

The Pagan Rabbi

Approximately 9,000 words, also published in Cynthia Ozick Collected Stories. The story is about a rabbi who had just committed suicide by hanging himself in a public park. He is remembered by his widow for having recently discovered a passion for nature and his widow felt that he left his beliefs of Judaism for Paganism.

Envy; or, Yiddish in America

Approximately 15,000 words, also published in Cynthia Ozick Collected Stories. The story is about an American Yiddish poet who is bitterly jealous of his more-successful contemporary. The main character also has a personal vendetta against televangelists who are attempting to convert Jews to Christianity.

The Suitcase

Approximately 7,000 words, also published in Cynthia Ozick Collected Stories. About a retired Imperial German fighter pilot, whose son is a well-recognized artist. One of the artist's friends finds that her purse has been stolen, and they try to figure out who stole it. The woman who lost her purse accuses the father of the artist, because he was in the Imperial German army.

The Butterfly and the Traffic Light

Approximately 3,000 words, also published in Cynthia Ozick Collected Stories. The story is basically an argument between a college girl and her professor about how traffic lights are the icons of American cities.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isaac Bashevis Singer</span> Jewish American author (1903–1991)

Isaac Bashevis Singer was a Polish-born Jewish-American novelist, short-story writer, memoirist, essayist, and translator. Some of his works were adapted for the theater. He wrote and published first in Yiddish and later translated his own works into English with the help of editors and collaborators. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978. A leading figure in the Yiddish literary movement, he was awarded two U.S. National Book Awards, one in Children's Literature for his memoir A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw (1970) and one in Fiction for his collection A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories (1974).

This is a bibliography of works by Rudyard Kipling, including books, short stories, poems, and collections of his works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isaac Babel</span> Russian writer and journalist

Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel was a Russian writer, journalist, playwright, and literary translator. He is best known as the author of Red Cavalry and Odessa Stories, and has been acclaimed as "the greatest prose writer of Russian Jewry." Babel was arrested by the NKVD on 15 May 1939 on fabricated charges of terrorism and espionage, and executed on 27 January 1940.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nachman of Breslov</span> Hasidic rabbi (1772–1810)

Nachman of Breslov, also known as Reb Nachman of Bratslav, Reb Nachman Breslover, and Nachman from Uman, was the founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement. He was particularly known for his creative parables, which drew on Eastern European folktales to infuse his teaching by creating deeply kabbalistic and yet universally accessible remedies, advices and parabolic stories, through which anyone can project himself into and draw spiritual and practical guidance. He emphasized finding and expressing a person's uniqueness, while steering away from despair in a world he saw as becoming more and more standardized. Through Martin Buber's translation, his teaching is thought to have influenced some 20th century writers, including Franz Kafka.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Jayne Gold</span> American heiress and humanitarian

Mary Jayne Gold was an American heiress who played an important role helping European Jews and intellectuals escape from Nazi-occupied France in 1940–41, during World War II. Many had fled there in preceding years from Germany, where oppression had mounted.

Cynthia Ozick is an American short story writer, novelist, and essayist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nathan of Breslov</span> Ukrainian rabbi (1780–1844)

Nathan of Breslov, also known as Reb Noson, born Nathan Sternhartz, was the chief disciple and scribe of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, founder of the Breslov Hasidic dynasty. Reb Noson is credited with preserving, promoting and expanding the Breslov movement after the Rebbe's death. Rebbe Nachman himself said, "Were it not for Reb Noson, not a page of my writings would have remained."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yiddish literature</span> Genre of written material

Yiddish literature encompasses all those belles-lettres written in Yiddish, the language of Ashkenazic Jewry which is related to Middle High German. The history of Yiddish, with its roots in central Europe and locus for centuries in Eastern Europe, is evident in its literature.

Abraham Regelson was an Israeli Hebrew poet, author, children's author, translator, and editor.

<i>Lilith</i> (magazine)

Lilith is an independent, Jewish-American, feminist non-profit magazine that has been issued quarterly since 1976. The magazine features award-winning investigative reports, first-person accounts, entertainment reviews, fiction and poetry, art and photography. Topics range from rabbinic sexual misconduct, to new rituals and celebrations, to deconstructing Jewish-American stereotypes, to understanding the Jewish stake in abortion rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewish Book Council</span> Jewish organization

The Jewish Book Council, founded in 1944, is an organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature. The goal of the council, as stated on its website, is "to promote the reading, writing and publishing of quality English language books of Jewish content in North America". The council sponsors the National Jewish Book Awards, the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, the JBC Network, JBC Book Clubs, the Visiting Scribe series, and Jewish Book Month. It publishes an annual literary journal called Paper Brigade.

<i>Carpenters Gothic</i> Book by William Gaddis

Carpenter's Gothic is the title of the third novel by American writer William Gaddis, published in 1985 by Viking. The title connotes a "Gothic" tale of haunted isolation, in a milieu stripped of all pretensions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Podwal</span> American artist and physician

Mark Podwal is an artist, author, filmmaker and physician. He may have been best known initially for his drawings on The New York Times Op-Ed page. In addition, he is the author and illustrator of numerous books. Most of these works — Podwal's own as well as those he has illustrated for others— typically focus on Jewish legend, history and tradition. His art is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Israel Museum, the National Gallery of Prague, the Jewish Museums in Berlin, Vienna, Stockholm, Prague, New York, among many other venues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur A. Cohen</span> American Jewish scholar (1928–1986)

Arthur Allen Cohen was an American scholar, art critic, theologian, publisher, and author.

Jacob Glatstein was a Polish-born American poet and literary critic who wrote in the Yiddish language. His name is also spelled Yankev Glatshteyn or Jacob Glatshteyn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Stern</span> American novelist

Steve J. Stern is an American author from Memphis, Tennessee. Much of his work draws inspiration from Yiddish folklore.

The Shawl is a short story first published by Cynthia Ozick in 1980 in The New Yorker. It tells the story of three characters: Rosa, Magda, and Stella on their march to and internment in a Nazi concentration camp. The Shawl is noted for its ability to instill in the reader the horror of the Holocaust in less than 2,000 words.

<i>Dictation: A Quartet</i>

Dictation: A Quartet (2008) is the seventh collection of short stories by American Author Cynthia Ozick.

Kathryn Ann Hellerstein is an American academic and scholar of Yiddish-language poetry, translation, and Jewish American literature. Specializing in Yiddish, she is currently a professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures and the Ruth Meltzer Director of the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania. She is known for her research focus on Yiddish women writers, notably Kadya Molodowsky, Malka Heifetz Tussman, and Celia Dropkin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caraid O'Brien</span> Writer, performer, translator and director

Caraid O'Brien is an Irish-born, US-based writer, performer, translator and theater director. Although she is from an Irish Catholic background, she is best known for her work with material originally written in Yiddish. Theater J Artistic Director Adam Immerwahr has praised "her superb theatrical ear and facility for transforming Yiddish work into relevant contemporary text."

References

  1. "The Pagan Rabbi and Other Stories". My Jewish Learning. Retrieved 2023-03-21.