Two Chelm Stories: Translator’s Introduction
Two Chelm Stories: Translator’s Introduction
David Stromberg - Dec, 21 2020
The Political Economy of Chelm
The Rise and Fall of King Vaizatha of Chelm or How Chelm Remained Penniless
Introduction: Isaac Bashevis Singer’s earliest Chelm stories appeared in English as part of his first collection for children, Zlateh the Goat (1966), illustrated by Maurice Sendak, who was then already known as an author and illustrator of children's literature. The collection contains three stories set in Chelm—a legendary Jewish town or shtetl known for the foolishness of its sages—inaugurating Singer into a tradition of Yiddish storytelling that included Y. L. Peretz, Leyb Kvitko, Shloyme Bastomski, Menahem Kipnis, and J. J. Trunk, among others. Singer composed a handful of additional Chelm tales for his followup children’s book, When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw (1968), illustrated by Margot Zemach. Singer published another English-language book, The Fools of Chelm and Their History (1973), illustrated by Uri Shulevitz, which presented a folkloristic take on modern history, and included many of these stories in his unillustrated collection, Stories for Children (1984), which featured most of his writing for young readers.
Singer had never published stories for children before writing “Zlateh the Goat” on the urging of an old friend, Elizabeth Shub, who was then working for Harper&Row. Unlike his adult fiction, most the stories appearing in his first children's collection were never published in Yiddish. Libby Shub, as she was known, translated the works alongside Singer directly from handwritten Yiddish manuscripts. Singer was rarely urged by others to write on a certain topic or in a particular genre—but Libby Shub was not an ordinary collaborator. She was the daughter of Samuel Charney, better known as Shmuel Niger, considered to be the greatest Yiddish literary critic of his time. She had met Singer at the age of twenty, in the first days of his emigration from Poland, with her husband Boris Shub, son of Sovietologist Boris Shub, who later became an editor for the Institute of Jewish Affairs. The two were part of the social scene connected to Singer's brother, Israel Joshua Singer, which included some of the leading editors and Democratic and Socialist political activists in New York, many of whom were connected with the Jewish daily Forward. Libby and Boris Shub were closer to Singer than some of the other figures he met at the time, corresponding with him from his first months in America, repeatedly inviting him to visit them in the country, and seeing him when they were in the city.
Libby Shub’s letters from this time suggest that she was also one of the first people to help Singer learn English. “Dear Itz,” she writes, with each word spelled out in large capitals, “I hope you miss your teacher very much, that you are a good pupil and do not say bad words to your new teacher and spoil my reputation. Look up all the new words in the dictionary…. Answer me in English. I want to see how you have improved” (July 5, 1935). This close relationship, which lasted through Libby's divorce from Boris and entry into the publishing industry, perhaps gave Libby the leverage needed to convince Singer to take a chance writing stories for children. But the reception was likely beyond anything either of them had expected: Singer’s first two collections were both awarded Newbery Honors, and Singer's A Day of Pleasure (1969), an adaptation of his childhood memoir for young readers, went on to receive a National Book Award—the first of two he would receive in his career.