The Dybbuk and Other Writings

An altogether excellent anthology, this volume offers a superior introduction to the brilliant, brooding works of a Yiddish master. Ansky, pseudonym of Lithuanian-born Solomon Rappoport (1863-1920), earned a place in literature with his great drama The Dybbuk . But as Roskies's unusually informative introduction demonstrates, the author had a turbulent relationship to his Jewish heritage and wrote under a raft of pen names before finding his true literary voice. As Ansky, he taps a source previously neglected by other great Yiddish writers: ``folklore as the wellspring of Jewish cultural renewal.'' The title work, for example, evokes the mystical underpinnings of shtetl life, with its rituals of possession and exorcism. The seven stories and novellas collected here focus more intently on tensions between the sacred and the secular, between the pious and the maskilimper book (supporters of the Jewish Enlightenment)--tensions that often border on violence. Finally, a lengthy excerpt from a four-volume chronicle of WW I, The Destruction of Galicia , offers a grim reminder of the long history and virulence of Eastern European anti-Semitism. Roskies is a professor of Yiddish literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary. (July)