This is the first complete English-language translation of a classic of Yiddish literature, one of the great comic novels of the twentieth century. The Zelmenyaners describes the travails of a Jewish family in Minsk that is torn asunder by the new Soviet reality. Four generations are depicted in riveting and often uproarious detail as they face the profound changes brought on by the demands of the Soviet regime and its collectivist, radical secularism. The resultant intergenerational showdownsincluding disputes over the introduction of electricity, radio, or electric trolleyare rendered with humor, pathos, and a finely controlled satiric pen. Moyshe Kulbak, a contemporary of the Soviet Jewish writer Isaac Babel, picks up where Sholem Aleichem left off a generation before, exploring in this book the transformation of Jewish life.

Moyshe Kulbak (1896–1937) was a Yiddish poet, novelist, and dramatist. Born in Smorgon near Vilna, he received a traditional Jewish education. At the age of twenty-three, he published his first book of poems in Vilna, then settled in Berlin where he became familiar with contemporary currents in European literature, particularly Expressionism. In 1923, Kulbak returned to Vilna to become one of the most popular figures in Yiddish cultural life, appointed to, among other positions, the chairmanship of the newly founded Yiddish PEN Club. Despite his great popularity as a teacher, writer, and lecturer, in 1928, Kulbak moved to Soviet Minsk, lured by the presence of much of his family and by the state sponsorship of Yiddish culture.The Zelmenyanerswas written and published in Minsk between 1929 and 1935, the heyday of short-lived cultural renaissance. Arrested in 1937 in the wave of Stalinist repression that hit the Minsk Yiddish writers and cultural activists with particular vehemence, and given a perfunctory show trial, Kulbak was shot on October 29 at the age of 41. Hillel Halkin is theNew York Timesbestselling author ofLetters to an American-Jewish Friend: A Zionist PolemicandAcross the Sabbath River: In Search of a Lost Tribe of Israel. He is the acclaimed translator of Sholem Aleichem’s masterpiece,Tevye the Dairyman, which was the basis forFiddler on the Roof. He has translated the works of S. Y. Agnon and A. B. Yehoshua, and his essays and columns have appeared regularly inCommentary, theNew Republic, theJerusalem Post, and theNew York Sun, among others. Sasha Senderovich holds a PhD from the department of Slavic languages and literatures at Harvard University.