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It’s been a little while, but I think it’s time to revive the recommended books series.
When I was a little girl, I used to love the funny stories about the wise men of Chelm. As with most good Jewish stories, these stories always started off somewhere along the lines of, “The story goes that back in Europe, in the little town of…” But unlike all the other stories, the heroes were not great rabbis, wise tailors, or kind milkmen. The heroes of the Chelm stories were fools. And it is their hilarious misadventures – such as the time the sexton of the synagogue hung the poor box from the ceiling so robbers couldn’t reach it, then built a staircase up to the poor box so the congregants could put money inside – that are the focus of their stories.
Dr. Ellen Frankel, JPS’ CEO and Editor-in-Chief, knows the world of Jewish folktales well. A scholar of Jewish folklore, Dr. Frankel has published The Classic Tales: 4000 Years of Jewish Lore, a collection of 300 traditional Jewish tales; The Encyclopedia of Jewish Symbols, co-authored with artist Betsy Teutsch; The Five Books of Miriam: A Woman’s Commentary on the Torah; and many other books besides (including the recently published JPS Illustrated Children’s Bible). So when I decided to an edition of the recommended books series on Jewish folklore and midrash, I looked no further than Dr. Frankel’s office down the hall.
Dr. Ellen Frankel’s top ten books about Jewish folklore and midrash (in no particular order):
1. Jewish Magic and Superstition, by Joshua Trachtenberg
2. Legends of the Jews, by Louis Ginzberg
3. The Book of Legends, by Hayyim Nahman Bialik, and Y.H. Ravnitzky
4. Present at Sinai, by S.Y. Agnon
5. Sisters at Sinai, by Jill Hammer
6. Mimekor Yisrael, by Joseph Bin Gorion
7. Folktales of the Jews, Volume 1: Tales from the Sephardic Dispersion; Volume 2: Tales from Eastern Europe, by Dan Ben Amos
8. The Savage in Judaism, by Schwartz, Howard Eilberg
9. The Forest of Symbols, by Victor Turner
10. The Holy and the Profane: Evolution of Jewish Folkways, by Theodore Gaster
-Naomi
