Fic­tion

Vil­na My Vilna

Abra­ham Karpinowitz; Helen Mintz, trans.
  • Review
By – September 13, 2016

Vil­na My Vil­na, a remark­able book of Yid­dish short sto­ries by Abra­ham Karpinowitz (1913 – 2004), has now been trans­lat­ed into Eng­lish by Helen Mintz. This col­lec­tion demon­strates that Karpinowitz deserves to be count­ed among the great Yid­dish writers. 

Born in Vil­nius (“Vil­na” in Yid­dish), Karpinowitz sur­vived the Holo­caust in the Sovi­et Union and returned briefly to the city in 1944. After sev­er­al years, he went to live in the State of Israel. In this col­lec­tion, Karpinowitz intro­duces us to the Vil­na that he loved and sought to keep alive through his writing. 

These fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ries are filled with com­mon folk, the amcha, var­i­ous types of crim­i­nals, a fish­wife at the mar­ket, actors, a folk­lorist, a teacher, pros­ti­tutes, bar­bers, a tav­ern own­er, and oth­ers. The the­atri­cal­i­ty of the sto­ries reveals the influ­ence of the author’s back­ground in the Yid­dish The­ater. Through the char­ac­ters such as Zevke the Lit­tle Mir­ror, Tevke the Tape­worm, Shmuel the Organ Grinder’s twin, and Hir­shke the Canary, the read­er becomes acquaint­ed with the whole city and begins to feel the per­va­sive pover­ty, the lack of luck, and the lost dreams of Vilna’s inhab­i­tants. Because these sto­ries take place between the two World Wars — and some, set in the Vil­na Ghet­to and Ponar, take place just at the brink of World War II — the end­ings of these tales are often poignant.

One of Karpinowitz’s major con­tri­bu­tions is his inter­twin­ing of actu­al his­tor­i­cal and con­tem­po­rary fig­ures with fic­tion­al char­ac­ters. For instance, in The Lin­eage of the Vil­na Under­world,” Napoleon enters the sto­ry-with­in-a-sto­ry of how Leybe’s wife once saved the emperor’s life — explain­ing how Mishke, who was a great-great-grand­son of Leybe the Fence, became known as Mishke Napoleon. Dr. Max Wein­re­ich, the Yid­dish lin­guist and direc­tor of YIVO, is a char­ac­ter in The Folk­lorist” and Chana-Mer­ka the Fish­wife.” Through this tech­nique, the author gives the sense that the fic­tion­al sto­ries actu­al­ly happened. 

Trans­la­tor Helen Mintz cap­tures the dis­tinct Vil­na Yid­dish through a col­lo­qui­al and vivid Eng­lish. Karpinowitz’s metaphors are well pre­served: Libke lay next to him, her pointy bel­ly cov­ered with a cot­ton blan­ket like a cholent wait­ing for tardy guests”; A tav­ern has open eyes.” Mintz’s skill is also par­tic­u­lar­ly evi­dent in her trans­la­tions of Chana-Merka’s curs­es: May you speak so beau­ti­ful­ly that only cats under­stand you”; You should swal­low an umbrel­la and it should open in your stomach.”

Helen Mintz’s intro­duc­tion and the fore­word by Pro­fes­sor Justin Cam­my of Smith Col­lege give the read­er a sol­id foun­da­tion to explore Vil­na through Karpinowitz’s sto­ries. The back­ground on the author, espe­cial­ly the con­nec­tion of his father to the the­ater, the city’s geog­ra­phy, and an intro­duc­tion the mot­ley cast of char­ac­ters of street and under­world char­ac­ters all pre­pare the read­er to know that the Vil­na in these sto­ries is not the Vil­na so wide­ly asso­ci­at­ed with Torah schol­ars, such as the Vil­na Gaon. Indeed, this is not the Vil­na respect­ful­ly referred to as The Jerusalem of Lithuania.”

To fur­ther help ori­ent the read­er, there is an exten­sive and valu­able glos­sary of peo­ple, places, terms, and events at the back of the book. Two detailed maps of Vil­na are also includ­ed, as is a bib­li­og­ra­phy of the books ref­er­enced through­out the collection.

A strong Jew­ish moral sense per­vades the sto­ries, mak­ing the read­er care what hap­pens to the char­ac­ters and to the book’s cen­tral char­ac­ter — Vil­na the city. In the final sto­ry, Vil­na, Vil­na, Our Native City,” the author writes with deep emo­tion, I must con­fess in the name of the sur­vivors … in the name of all those who escaped from the hell­fire through ghet­toes, through forests, through camps, com­bat zones, and bat­tle­fronts … I must con­fess that we were in love with Vil­na … And when the string of mem­o­ry is plucked, that world sings for us as though still puls­ing, as though it hadn’t been tak­en from us forever.”

Relat­ed Content:

Penin­nah Schram, well-known sto­ry­teller & author, is Pro­fes­sor of Speech and Dra­ma at Yeshi­va Uni­ver­si­ty’s Stern Col­lege. Her lat­est book is an illus­trat­ed anthol­o­gy, The Hun­gry Clothes and Oth­er Jew­ish Folk­tales (Ster­ling Pub­lish­ing) and a CD, The Min­strel & the Sto­ry­teller, with singer/​guitarist Ger­ard Edery (Sefarad Records). She is a recip­i­ent of a Covenant Award for Out­stand­ing Jew­ish Edu­ca­tor and the 2003 Nation­al Sto­ry­telling Net­work’s Life­time Achieve­ment Award.

Discussion Questions