18: Jewish Stories Translated from 18 Languages

Editor and author Nora Gold has seamed together eighteen stories by international Jewish writers and translated their works from their original language for the English reader. Some of the writers’ names are familiar, others not so recognized, their words having been isolated by the foreign tongue. But what the translations of these pieces show is that there is spiritual unity among the themes expressed in these stories that identify them with the bitter-sweet and tragic history of the Jewish people.

Some of the writers’ names are familiar as is Elie Wiesel… his story translated from French, or Isaac Babel translated from Russian, or the Hebrew translation of Shmuel Yosef Agnon. But the other short stories or excerpts from languages as diverse as Greek, Spanish, Croatian, Hungarian, Ladino, Polish, Albanian, Portuguese, Danish, Czech, and Turkish, these show how the Jewish culture has been dispersed, but is still maintained.

There is a common theme to many of these writings, the anguish of not belonging and of isolation. Some of the writings reflected images of Chagall paintings and replayed the plaintive music of hope and belief. This anthology serves as a reflection of the condition and mind of a suffering people.