Jewish+Folktales-+An+Annotated+Bibliography+created+by+Nora+Cope

I chose to collect the stories of my mother's people, Eastern European Jews, for my cultural authenticity study. I was a little bit disheartened to find that most of the Jewish folktales that were available in the two local libraries that I searched were in large dusty anthologies. I was only able to find 5 picture books between the two libraries that were truly Jewish folklore and not original Jewish stories. I originally found a sixth book but rejected it upon examination. I just could not find any proof that a story about the little red hen baking matzah for Passover was an actual Jewish folktale, even if it was in the 398s. After I brought the books home to read, I realized that even though the titles and covers would never give away the secret, two of the books were based on the exact same Jewish folk song, which was a neat discovery.


 * Jaffe, Nina. **//** The Way Meat Loves Salt: A Cinderella Tale from the Jewish Tradition **//** . **** Illus. by Louise August. **** 1998. 32p. **** Henry Holt and Company. **** $15.95 (0-8050-4384-5) **

//The Way Meat Loves Salt// Is a Jewish Cinderella folktale. In this version of the tale, A rabbi has three daughters. One day, he is troubled because he cannot find out from all of his scholarly books whether or not his daughters love him as much as he loves them. When questioned, the two oldest girls compare their love for their father to their love for gold and silver. This pleases him because both are very valuable. However, his youngest daughter, Mireleh, answers that she loves him as much as the way meat loves salt. Meat is not as valuable as silver or gold, so the rabbi grows angry and throws his daughter out into the cold, declaring that she is never to return. While wandering alone, Mireleh is visited by a fairy godmother sort of figure in the form of an old man who gives her a magic stick and tells her where she can find shelter with a rich rabbi and his family in another town. Mireleh finds the rabbi's home and she is indeed taken in, but only out of charity and she is sent up to a dingy attic room that befits the poor beggar girl that the rabbi thinks she is. The next day, the rabbi and his family head out to travel to a wedding in a neighboring town. Mireleh wants to go to the wedding, but she is dressed in rags. She bangs her magic stick on the floor and she is suddenly dressed like royalty and on her way to the wedding party. While there, she impresses everyone with her beauty including the rabbi's son. They dance late into the night, but eventually she has to leave to head back to the house before the rabbi and his family get home. The rabbi's son puts tar on the floor to capture one of her satin slippers, and vows to marry whomever the shoe may fit. When he gets home, Mireleh convinces the rabbi's son to let her try on the shoe and she then produces the matching one from her pocket. He does not want to marry a beggar girl, but she reminds him of his promise and showed him her magic stick. The rabbi's son saw great potential in marrying someone with a magic stick that could produce anything they wanted, so they were indeed married. The day of the wedding, Mireleh instructed all of the cooks to not put salt in any of the food. Later, during the wedding dinner, she noticed many of the guests making faces as they ate. She approached one guest and asked why he made such a face. When he replied that it was because the meat needed salt, she said "but father, don't you remember? I told you I loved you the way meat loves salt and you drove me from your house". Her father recognizes her and they are all happily reunited at last.

Nina Jaffe is the granddaughter of Eastern European Jews and is nationally known for her retellings of Jewish Folklore. According to the notes that begin the book, she found this particular story in a book called //Yiddish Folktales//, edited by Beatrice Silverman Weinreich. In Weinreich's collection, this cinderella story was titled "How Much Do You Love Me?". Jaffe's care to explain where she found this folktale right on the first page of the book saves the librarian and the classroom instructor the time and worry of trying to find the story recorded by someone else, in order to verify its authenticity as a true Jewish Folktale. Jaffe also includes a song at the end of the book called "Mazel Tov!". The sheet music is given as well as the lyrics in both English, and the original Yiddish. In order to confirm the cultural authenticity of the song, Jaffe explains that this song is a traditional Eastern European wedding song, and that it had been collected by musicologist Chana Mlotek in Bucharest in 1955. It is clear to the educator that this author has done her research.

Less is known about the authenticity of the illustrations. The linocut pictures have a rustic and peasantlike feel to them. The clothing seems appropriate, and the use of color and pattern is bright and engaging. It is at least known that Louise August has illustrated other Jewish tales, which leads one to think that this may be a specialty of hers.


 * Sanfield, Steve. **//** Bit by Bit **//** . **** Illus. by Susan Gaber. **** 1995. 28p. **** Penguin Putnam. **** $5.99 (0-698-11775-1) **



In //Bit By Bit,// Steve Stanfield tells the story of a poor tailor who makes himself a beautiful overcoat that he wears so often, he eventually wears it out. Being clever, he realizes that he has enough fabric in good shape to make a coat, but this too wears out. The pattern continues with a jacket, a vest, a cap, a pocket, and then a button. Once the button wears out, the tailor thought that there was no way for the beautiful fabric to live on, but the narrator points out that the fabric will live forever because now there is a story to be passed on.

Stanfield notes at the end of the book that this story is based off of a Yiddish folk song called "If I Had a Little Coat". He says that his grandmother used to sing this song to him when he was a child. She came from a village "deep in the Pale of Settlement". I obtained a copy of this song and it does share the main plot line of //Bit By Bit//, but Sanfield embellished the story by adding more details and making it his own.

The story has a wonderful sense of pattern and repetition that lends itself perfectly to oral storytelling. Over and over, we hear of the beautiful fabric "with the red threads and the gold threads, the blue threads and the green threads". The rhythm of the story makes it seem songlike, although these and other repeated phrases that are found in the story book, do not occur in the song.

Susan Gaber's watercolor and ink illustrations share a large portion of the storytelling with the words themselves. The words tell the reader that the tailor wore the clothing pieces so often that he wore them out over time, but the pictures tell the story of the tailor's life over time and all of the special events that the clothing was worn to. Through pictures, we learn that the tailor was courting his wife while wearing the overcoat and he marries her in the jacket. He wears a cap to greet his new baby, and when the child grows a little bit older, the tailor has a pocket. The pictures are very bright and colorful and look very much like the illustration style of Patricia Polocco, another illustrator of Jewish tales.

** Zemach, Margot. //It Could Always Be Worse// **** . ** ** 1976. 32p. **** Farrar, Straus and Giroux. **** $5.95 ( 0-3743-36504 ) **


In this folktale, a poor man lives in a one room hut with his mother, his wife, and his six children. He is made miserable by the noise and the crowding, so he goes to ask the rabbi for help. The rabbi advises that the poor man should bring all of his chickens and roosters and geese into the hut to live with the family. Of course, this makes things worse. So, the poor man goes back to the rabbi where he is instructed to take the family goat inside as well. This pattern repeats with a cow. The next time the poor man returns to the rabbi for help, he is desperate. Finally, the Rabbi tells him let all of the animals out of the hut. Once this has been done, the poor man returns to the rabbi to tell him that his life is now sweet because with just the family in the house, it is now so quiet and roomy.

The moral and title of this story "It could always be worse" is a classic Yiddish Anecdote (Ausubel 68). The author leaves no notes to help the librarian and the classroom instructor follow the story's trail of authenticity. However, I had little trouble finding very similar versions of the story under the same title in folklore anthologies, including Nathan Ausubel's //A Treasury of Jewish Folklore//. In this version of the story, the same animals are used, but they are all added to the house at one time. It is one by one that the rabbi advises the poor man to remove the animals for the home, which is opposite from the storybook version. Also different in this version, the poor man is a bit more dramatic about his desperation than he was in the storybook. He tells the rabbi that his "home is a hell and I'd sooner die than continue living this way" (69). This language is probably a bit too strong for the target audience of the storybook version.

In addition to retelling this story, Margot Zemach also painted the pictures. The very limited and drab color scheme that she uses of mostly browns and grays with small hints of muted blues and reds, really does a lot to add to the gloomy nature of the story. She also uses lots of humor when depicting the sheer silliness and pandemonium caused by having all of those animals in the hut.

I was unable to get my hands on any book reviews for this book, although I know that they exist because I was able to find little excerpts scattered across the internet. The problem is, my University Library does not have review magazines like //The School Library Journal// going all the way back to 1976.


 * Kimmel, Eric. **//** The Adventures of Hershel of Ostropol **//** . **** Illus. by Trina Schart Hyman. **** 1995. 64p. **** Holiday House. **** $15.95 (0-8234-1210-5) **



In this book, Eric Kimmel retells ten stories about a common character in Jewish folklore, Hershel of Ostropol. Hershel is a very poor man with a large family to feed. All of the stories are about the ways that he used his clever brand of storytelling and trickery to fool others, usually into giving him food or money to feed himself and his family. Other common characters in these stories are Uncle Zalman, the richest and stingiest man in town, who often falls for Hershel's stories, and Rabbi Isreal, a very charitable man that often gets pulled unwillingly into Hershel's schemes. Some of the stories have morals, but most of them are just for humor and entertainment's sakes. At the end of the book, Kimmel includes a list of Hershel's best anecdotes, pulled from both the stories in this book as well as ones from the greater collection of Hershel stories in Jewish Folklore. These anecdotes are not all meant to be wise, most are just meant to be funny "with luck, who needs wisdom?" (Kimmel 64).

At the beginning of the book, Kimmel writes that he grew up hearing Hershel stories from his family. Since then, he has collected Hershel stories from the oral tradition, as well as ones that he found in anthologies of Jewish folklore, both originally recorded in English and ones written in Yiddish. He says that his mother helped him translate the stories that were in Yiddish. These notes are very helpful to the librarian and classroom instructor in verifying the cultural authenticity of the book.

The illustrations in this book are very simple. Hyman includes one black and white drawing above the title of each story. Even though there is only one small drawing for each story, Hyman packs in as much action as she can. For example, to illustrate the story "The Candlesticks", which is a complicated story about good deeds, spoons giving birth to spoons, angels, Uncle Zalman, Rabbi Isreal, Hershel, and of course candlesticks, all of the items listed are present in the picture. Less information is available to help librarians and classroom instructors determine the cultural authenticity of the illustrations, but according to a jacket listing of other books by Kimmel, Hyman has worked with him on previous occasions. This leads one to believe that she at least has experience in illustrating Jewish Folklore.


 * Taback, Simms. **//** Joseph Had a Little Overcoat **//** . ** ** 1999. 32p. **** Viking. **** $15.99 (0-670-87855-3) **



In this book, Simms Taback tells the story of a man named Joseph who had a worn out overcoat, so he made it into a jacket. The jacket wears out, so he makes it into a vest. The vest turns to a scarf, which becomes a necktie, then a handkerchief, and finally a button. One day, he loses the button. At first he thinks that he has been left with nothing, but then he decides to make a book about it "which shows you can always make something out of nothing".

Taback finishes his tale with a note to the readers explaining that the story comes from his favorite song as a child. He says that "I Had a Little Overcoat" was a Yiddish song, passed down in his family. Taback also includes a copy of the song with the sheet music and the English lyrics to the song. The title is also given in Yiddish, which helps teachers and classroom instructors verify its cultural authenticity.

The story itself is very simple, with less than an average of ten words per page. Taback adds very little detail to the minimal shell of the folk song. It is the illustrations in this book that make it really special. The bright and enchanting pictures made of watercolor, Gouache, pencil, ink and collage. The best part about the pictures are the unique cutouts that Taback uses to tell the story of the transforming garments. Cutout shapes in the pages lay on top of images of the previous, larger garment. This both reveals what the garment looks like now, and reminds the reader of where it came from. On pages where Joseph has worn out a garment, his face looks sad and worried. When he wears a newly transformed garment, he gleams with happiness.

The way that Taback has illustrated this book makes it a great one to flip through again and again. The story could be easily understood without ever looking at the words, which makes this a great picture book for young learners. However, although still enjoyable, I think much of the charm of this book would be lost during a storytelling to a large group. This book seems to be meant to be held and handled

TWU Databases: Wilson and Book Review Digest
Arnold, Tim. " Joseph had a little overcoat (Book Review)." //Booklist// 96.9-10 (2000): 936. Article Citation. Web. 2 July 2010. Bloom, Susan P.. "The way meat loves salt (Book Review)." //The Horn Book// 74.5 (1998): 616. Article Citation. Web. 2 July 2010. Chatton, Barbara. "The way meat loves salt (Book Review)." //School Library Journal// 44.9 (1998): 192. Article Citation. Web. 2 July 2010. Kamenetz, Rodger. "The adventures of Hershel of Ostropol (Book Review)." //The New// //York Times Book Review// 17 Dec. 1995: 28. Article Citation. Web. 2 July 2010. Kiefer, Barbara. " Bit by bit (Book Review)." //School Library Journal// 41 (1995): 128. Article Citation. Web. 2 July 2010. Ludke, Linda. " Joseph had a little overcoat (Book Review)." //School Library Journal// 46.1 (2000): 112. Article Citation. Web. 2 July 2010. Posner, Marcia W.. "The adventures of Hershel of Ostropol (Book Review)." //School// //Library Journal// 41 (1995): 112. Article Citation. Web. 2 July 2010.