Are you interested in reading classic Yiddish literature in translation? This new quarterly reading group explores many themes for lively discussion through the lens of three Yiddish novels in translation, plus an additional contemporary title outside of the genre. Some of the themes we’ll discuss are the tug and pull of tradition and modernity; familial relationships; immigration; and the history of the Yiddish language, literature and culture. Each book comes with a discussion guide.

Registration is optional. Please pick up a copy of the book and discussion guide in the Reference Room.

Presented as part of the Yiddish Book Center’s Public Libraries Program, a partnership with the American Library Association. Made possible by the Lilly Endowment, Inc. Learn more about WPL's participation in this program here.

At this meeting we'll discuss Tevye the Dairyman by Sholem Aleichem, translated by Aliza Shevrin.

Tevye is the compassionate, lovable, Bible-quoting dairyman from Anatevka, and Tevye the Dairyman is a heartwarming and poignant account of life in turn-of-the-century Russia. Through the workaday world of a rural dairyman, his grit, wit, and heart, his daughters' courtships and marriages, and the eventual menace of the pogroms, Sholem Aleichem reveals the fabric of a now-vanished world.