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First published in 1936, The People of Godlbozhits depicts the ordinary yet deeply complex life of a Jewish community, following the fortunes of one family and its many descendants. Set in a shtetl in Poland between the world wars, Rashkin's satiric novel offers a vivid cross-section not only of the residents' triumphs and struggles but also of their dense and complicated web of humanity. With biting humor and acerbic wit, Rashkin portrays the stratified society-the petty bourgeoisie, artisans, and proletariat-observing the crookedness at every level. The novel's brisk and oftentimes lively Yiddish prose and its colorful and irascible cast of characters give readers a Yiddish Yoknapatawpha in all its tragic absurdity.
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Reviews
"The novel is an element-an important, albeit neglected, one-in the puzzle of Yiddish literature created in the pre-Holocaust decades of the 20th century. Jordan Finkin's excellent translation gives a chance to include Rashkin's literary legacy in the contemporary academic discourse."
clinical professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University
"A major work capturing the penultimate hour of Polish Jewish existence. . . . It is both hilarious and gruesome. The act of translating [it] is an invaluable gift for mankind, for we are offered an inside view of a battered but still vibrant Jewish world that no one could have expected to be exterminated to its roots within three years."
professor emeritus, Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies, University of Texas