Inside Kasrilevke

"Sholem Aleichem is one of the greatest Yiddish authors. What stands out about his work is its humour and its poignancy. Fiddler on the Roof is the cartoon version of his work. The Kasrilevke stories are – as I recall from listening to my father read them aloud in English translation – very funny, laugh-out-loud funny. They are like comedy routines, building to high hilarity. The Kasrilevke tales are my comic ideal. Yiddish, as I understand it, is a cross between Hebrew and German. It’s an amazing language, from a culture that is rich in literature, journalism and debate. My great grandmother spoke Yiddish. Until the end of her life, she read Yiddish newspapers and was very sorry that I didn’t learn the language. But Yiddish was the language of the old world, which those of us who were born in America didn’t have access to."