Warsaw Stories

Hersh Dovid Nomberg (1876-1927) was one of a new wave of Yiddish writers who made a name for himself with his characteristically atmospheric short stories populated by artists, philosophers and other outcasts. Newly translated by Daniel Kennedy, Nomberg's stories explore modern Jewish life in the growing cosmopolitan city of Warsaw: young intellectuals in pursuit of truth, beauty, and love; working class fathers tempted by schemes for easy money; teenagers divided between their traditional religious upbringings and the world of secular culture and political revolution. In this new English translation, Hersh Dovid Nomberg's stories explore modern Jewish life in the growing cosmopolitan city of Warsaw: young intellectuals in pursuit of truth and beauty; working class fathers tempted by schemes for easy money; and teenagers caught between desire and tradition. By turns comic, satiric, and earnest, Nomberg's stories take the pulse of Warsaw's Jewish society at the dawn of the twentieth century.