Arguing with the Storm: Stories by Yiddish Women Writers

by Rhea Tregebov (Editor)

From the shtetl to the New World, from failed revolutions in tsarist Russia to the Holocaust, these Yiddish tales illuminate a lost world from a woman’s distinctive perspective. For decades, stories by Yiddish women writers were available only to those who spoke the “mother tongue” of Eastern European Jews. This translation brings some of the “lost” women writers of the golden age of Yiddish to English-speaking readers. Their stories range from the wryly humorous—a girl seeking a wet nurse for her cousin brings him to a shiksa , with dire consequences—to the bittersweet, as a once-idealistic revolutionary now sees her hopes for humanity as “fantasy.” The title is from a poem that describes a widow arguing with a storm that threatens her harvest. It is a metaphor for the Holocaust, whose dark cloud was rising. Arguing with the Storm is a joy to read and a tribute to all those women, who, in arguing with the storm, fought to protect their families and way of life. The anthology includes works by Sarah Hamer-Jacklyn, Bryna Bercovitch, Anne Viderman, Malka Lee, Frume Halpern, Rochel Bruches, Paula Frankel-Zaltzman, Chava Rosenfarb, and Rikuda Potash. Rhea Tregebov teaches creative writing at the University of British Columbia and is the author of six critically acclaimed books of poetry, most recently (alive): Poems New and Selected . She collected these tales with the help of the Winnipeg Women’s Yiddish Reading Circle.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Jewish, Judaica, Gender

128 pages, Paperback

First published February 14, 2007

About the author

Rhea Tregebov is the acclaimed author of eight collections of poetry. Her most recent, Talking to Strangers, won the 2024 Canadian Jewish Literary Award for poetry and was long-listed for the Al Eurithe Purdy Poetry prize. In addition to her poetry, she has published two novels, Rue des Rosiers (2019) and The Knife Sharpener’s Bell (2009). She is also the author of five popular children’s picture books including The Big Storm and What-If Sara, which are set in Winnipeg. She has edited ten anthologies of essays, poetry and fiction, most recently Arguing with the Storm. Her work has received a number of literary prizes, including the Tiny Torgi award (for The Big Storm) as well as the Pat Lowther Award, Prairie Schooner Readers’ Choice Award, and the Malahat Review Long Poem Award for her poetry.

Born in Saskatoon and raised in Winnipeg, Rhea Tregebov received her undergraduate education in Winnipeg. She did postgraduate studies at Cornell and Boston Universities.

For many years she worked as a freelance writer and editor in Toronto, where she also taught creative writing for Ryerson Continuing Education. She was an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia, where she taught poetry and translation until her retirement in 2017. She is now an Associate Professor Emerita.

From the Author:

Rue des Rosiers is set in 1982. The protagonist, Sarah, is the youngest of three sisters, and feels as if she's the black sheep of the family. Eldest sister Rose is a talented dancer who is happily married. Middle sister Gail is an activist lawyer. Sarah is working for minimum wage at a garden centre, living on her own in a rooming house in Toronto. She's adrift in her own life, unable to make decisions small or large. When Rose falls prey to clinical depression, the family starts to unravel. After she is fired from her job and has a fight with Gail, Sarah finds herself on an extended holiday in Paris, where her life starts to make sense. But there her path begins to cross that of Laila, her doppleganger. Laila is a young Palestinian woman who bears scars both inside and out and whose life as a housecleaner in Paris could not be further from la vie en rose. As the two young women move closer and closer to a collision, both lives will be radically changed.

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A captivating collection. The writers from this anthology often choose children, invalids, immigrants and Holocaust survivors as protagonists to portray a common thread- a relationship with the outside world, which they often don't understand, or have to fight against in order to survive. Though every tale is different, they each encompass the larger Jewish experience, imho. Thank goodness for the power of translation!

[Three O'Clock Press]

This stunning collection of fourteen translated stories represents an outstanding contribution to the Yiddish renaissance that has been gaining momentum since the 1980s. The title Arguing with the Storm comes from a poem by Yiddish author Rachel Korn in which the speaker's mother argues with a hailstorm that threatens to lay waste to her fields. Although the poem was published before the Second World War, the impending storm can be seen as a metaphor prefiguring the Holocaust and the destruction from which so few were successfully hidden. The mother's defiant argument, however, remains a paradigm of courage and resistance. The prayers and tirades, humour and rage, compassion and wisdom expressed in this collection offer readers a window onto the complexities of the lives portrayed. Editor Rhea Tregebov worked with a group of talented translators and readers to gather this important collection of stories and memoirs for Arguing with the Storm. Selected for their inclusive vision, the stories range across time and geography, from Sarah Hamer-Jacklyn's comic shtetl tale, "No More Rabbi!"; and Frume Halpern's sharp psychological satire in "Good-Bye Honey," to Paula Frankel-Zaltzman's heartrending memoir of caring for her invalid father in the Dvinsk ghetto during the Nazi occupation. Although as many as eight of the contributors have now passed away, they have left behind voices that ring true to the wit, humour, satire and compassion of emyiddishkayt (Yiddish culture) as well as its tragedy.

[Leah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was really hard to read at this point in my life. The short story form didn't allow for a silver lining to appear, which doubled the painful content. Maybe I'll finish it later.

[Hanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful, beautiful, but damn hard to get through. still working on it, hoping for a single story with some sort of positive ending.

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some very good stories in here, and others are interesting from a cultural/sociological perspective. If you're hoping for Singer's magical narratives, you'll be disappointed, though.

[Terry Waslow · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories are varied and there is brief biographical information about the authors. A great way to get acquainted with authors you may not have met before.