Blessed Hands: Stories
by Frume Halpern
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Pub Date 17 Oct 2023 | Archive Date 1 Oct 2023
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Description
A plain factory worker who hides herself from life finds new possibilities opening up when a co-worker invites her to a political lecture. A humble shoemaker gains confidence and pride in his work after a yeshiva student introduces him to the philosophy of Spinoza. An unhappy housewife has new emotions stirred in her by an intellectual boarder. An African American man works his entire life standing, only to find himself unable to walk in retirement. A Jewish family waits in sorrow and anger as their loved ones' fates are played out on the national news. Frume Halpern brings these "slice of life" stories to life in this collection of short stories featuring protagonists on the fringes of American society: immigrants, Jews, African Americans, and the disabled, the sick, and the poor.
Blessed Hands is the first ever complete English-language translation of Gebenshte hent: dertseylungen, along with the original foreword by Isaac Elchanan Ronch and an afterword by the translator. This collection contains short stories that were published over several decades in the left-wing daily news-paper Morgn frayhayt [Morning Freedom] and other Yiddish-language outlets in mid-20th century New York.
These psychologically insightful stories present the lives of protagonists who are working-class poor, social outcasts, and those experiencing illness, disability, and racism. Halpern was born in Bialystok (then the Russian Empire, now Poland) in the 1880s and immigrated to the United States in 1904, becamimg a naturalized citizen in 1914. She worked as a massage therapist in a hospital and many of these stories are about those who work with their hands: workshop/factory workers, piece workers, a shoemaker, a butcher, and a hairdresser.
Advance Praise
"“Left-wing writers like Frume Halpern constituted an important part of American Yiddish literature in the 20th century. But until recently, many have been absent from the English-language library. Yermiyahu Ahron Taub has helped to correct this lacuna, offering lucid translations that capture the spirit and idiom of Halpern’s aesthetics and social consciousness. From an unlikely friendship between Jewish and Black women to a synagogue whose elderly congregants are slowly dying, Halpern’s moving soliloquies describe everyday struggles with economic, racial, and gender disparities in mid-century America.”
--Amelia Glaser, Endowed Chair in Judaic Studies, UC San Diego
Yermiyahu Ahron Taub's translation of Frume Halpern's Blessed Hands at last brings to readers this extraordinary author's complete collection of short stories. Halpern's radical compassion, her powerful commitment to those whose social position, or physical limitations, leaves them outcast from the promised land of America makes for compelling, unforgettable fiction. Taub's nuanced translation brings Halpern's stunning and moving words fully to light; his extensive afterword helps contextualize Halpern's remarkable accomplishment.
--Rhea Tregebov, author of Rue des Rosiers
On both sides of the Atlantic, Frume Halpern's healers and disrupters, dreamy butchers and ambitious spinsters, aging newspaper vendors and untutored mothers, comrades and believers—all strain to make sense of their lives within the contradictory values and challenges of the 20th century. Yermiyahu Ahron Taub's sensitive translations and detailed analysis highlight Halpern's artistic commitment to make visible a seemingly infinite number of protagonists whose struggles are marginalized and unnoticed. With Blessed Hands, Taub has further expanded and enriched the burgeoning body of Yiddish literature in English translation.
--Irena Klepfisz, author of Her Birth and Later Years: New and Collected Poems, 1971-2021
Frume Halpern's stories illuminate the lives of those who give too much of themselves in order to survive—like the mother who sells her own breast milk to the wealthy while her own baby cries in hunger. I was moved again and again by characters like the elderly couple who did not mingle with neighbors and instead ""took refuge in their own slice of poverty."" This vibrant, deeply soulful translation by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub honors Halpern's precision, humanity, and vision, and brings all of it to life.
--Aviya Kushner, author of The Grammar of God and Wolf Lamb Bomb
Available Editions
| ISBN | 9781642510492 |
| PRICE | US$5.99 (USD) |
