About this book
A forgotten Yiddish children’s fantasy, at last in English
Best for: readers of Jewish fantasy, Yiddish students, Jewish educators, translators, folklore readers, and adults who love classic children’s literature.
Binele comes from a world of Yiddish literature that spoke to children with seriousness, tenderness, and high hopes. First serialized in 1938 in Kinder Tsaytung, a Yiddish socialist children’s magazine, B. J. Bialostotzky’s tale follows Binele, a young boy who cannot accept that joy should be brief and suffering ordinary. Instead, he sets out to find the Land of Endless Holiday.
What follows is at once a wonder tale, a moral quest, and what Professor Michael Weingrad, in his afterword, calls “a fantasy for very dark times.” Guided by Eliyahu haNovi, the Prophet Elijah, through a landscape of beauty, sorrow, and danger, Binele pursues his dream of a world remade on gentler and more just terms.
Drawing on Jewish folklore, messianic longing, and the ideals of Yiddish socialist culture, Binele reveals a little-known chapter in the history of twentieth century fantasy. Weingrad’s afterword, “Bialostotzky’s Neverending Story,” places the tale in conversation with the more famous contemporary works of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien.
This bilingual edition restores a distinctive Yiddish classic to new life for readers of English and Yiddish alike: a deeply Jewish fantasy of courage, longing, and the hope that somewhere beyond the horizon, a better world still waits.
Excerpts from Hillel Rogoff's review, Der Forverts, 8 September 1940
“Binele” is a children’s story, but like all good children’s stories, it can be read by adults with even more enjoyment than with children. To be able to write good stories for children demands a poetic talent, and Bialostotzky is a gifted poet. He has a rich imagination, a flair for beautiful words and an aptitude for embodying thoughts in pictures…
… the story contains a lesson. Within the fantastical illustrations, within the supernatural scenes, a philosophical thought is interwoven regarding the human striving for greater happiness, for greater illumination, greater righteousness and justice. The adult reader will read the tale as a well-done, beautiful illustration about today’s dark times, and about the hope for brighter times ahead. The child may not be as easily attuned to the moral of the story, but it needn’t be difficult to explain it to him, in a way he can understand.
Bialostotzky uses Jewish themes, legends, sayings and personalities, weaving them into the story to give it a special Jewish charm. The reader doesn’t forget for one moment that this is a Jewish children’s story; nevertheless, in its general concept and structure, it is similar to children’s literature world-over.
Advance Praise
“The illustrations and translation of this classic Yiddish children’s book reveal it to be a tale of inspiration and adventure suitable for all ages. It’s a reader’s holiday.”
—Zackary Sholem Berger, Yiddish translator of The Cat in the Hat and Curious George.
“Binele is, quite simply, magic, and magic of a particularly Jewish sort. Its images and its protagonist will linger with you long past its haunting ending.”
—Jeremy Dauber, author, Jewish Comedy: A Serious History and The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem
About the Author and Translator
Benjamin Jacob (Binyomen Yankev) Bialostotzky (1893-1962) was born in Pumpėnai, Russia, the son of the Grodner Maggid. He had a religious education, and joined the Zionist movement as a youth. His first publication, a poem, appeared in 1909. He immigrated to Germany in 1910 and to the United States a year later. Living in New York City, he was active in various Yiddish cultural organizations of the day, including the editorial boards of several Yiddish children’s journals; he also taught in Workmen’s Circle schools.
His work includes children’s songs, poetry and Jewish folklore. Bialostotzky’s works were first collected in Lider un Eseyen (Poems and Essays) in 1932. His volume of poetry Lid tsu Lid (Poem to Poem) was published in 1958; he also published several collections of Jewish folklore and legends for children and adults, including Fun Golus Bovl bis Roym (From the Babylonian Exile to Rome) in 1949, Di Mesholim fun Dubner Magid (Parables of the Maggid of Dubno) in 1962, and Yidisher Humor un Yidishe Leytsim (Jewish Humor and Jewish Jesters) in 1963.
Sol Liptzin, in his work A History of Yiddish Literature, describes Binele as Bialostotzky’s “masterpiece for children.”
Bialostotzky died at his home in the Bronx on September 22, 1962, aged 69. He was buried in the Workmen’s Circle section of Mount Carmel Cemetery.
Ruth Murphy’s translations have appeared in Metamorphoses, Pakn Treger, and the Yiddish Book Center’s Yiddish in Translation. Her bilingual Yiddish-English text, The Canvas and Other Stories by Salomea Perl, was published by Ben Yehuda Press in 2021. Bilingual and English-only versions of Hersh Smoliar’s Jews Without Yellow Stars: stories of Jewish partisan fighters in Nazi-occupied Belarus were published by Ben Yehuda Press in December 2024. Upcoming translations include Jacob Gordin’s plays Khasye di yesoyme and On a heym.
