Ma'aseh Buch

The title page of the 1602 print of Ma'aseh Buch

Ma'aseh Buch (and other transliterations) is a collection of orally transmitted Yiddish tales, sagas, legends, and parables compiled by Yaakov bar Avraham of Mezhirech and first published by Konrad Waldkirch [de] in Basle, Switzerland (now Basel) in 1602, written in Judeo-German. Its full title is Yiddish: אײַן שאָן מאַסאַה בוך, romanized: Eyn Shoyn Mayse Bukh, lit. 'A Beautiful Story Book'. It was reprinted many times in Yiddish. It was translated into English by Moses Gaster in 1934, under the title Ma'aseh Book: Book of Jewish Tales and Legends Translated from the Judeo-German (in two volumes).

Background

Collections of legends and tales (ma'asim) printed in Judeo-German are known since early 15th century. It was a separate category evolved after the earlier Judeo-German literature, which was based on Jewish religious texts. The category of ma'aseh books was aimed at women and girls, who, unlike men, seldom learned Hebrew.

Contents

The prologue states that the book is intended for women, as well as for men "who are like women", i.e., do not know Hebrew. It was printed in a typeface known as vayber-taytsh (women's taytsh, i.e., "women's Yiddish" in modern terms)

Astrid Starck [de] writes that women play a noticeable role in the book: over half of the stories have a woman protagonist, although always associated with a man ( husband, father, brother-in-law, lover).

It contains many purely entertaining stories, such as the tale of the man breastfeeding his child, the slandered woman, the separated family, the stolen child, the Jewish pope, the rabbi turned into a werewolf, etc.

Yoav Elstein [he] and Ariela Krasny classify the stories from Ma'aseh Buch into the following groups:

Translations

As of 2006, it was translated into English (1934), German (several prints over years), French (2004), Czech (2006), and Hebrew (2016).

The English translation contains 254 stories in the main text and three more in the Appendix to vol. 2.

The 2004 French translation is the first complete one, with a facsimile of the editio princeps.

The Czech translation Majsebuch aneb Kniha jidiš legend a příběhů by Jindřich Vacek [cs] earned him the 2006 Josef Jungmann Award.

Notes

  1. ↑ Mezhirech (Yiddish: מעזשיריטש) was Międzyrzecz Korecki in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, now Velyki Mezhyrichi, Ukraine (also known as "Mezrits Gadol", "Larger Mezrits" in Hebrew texts )

References

  1. ↑ Meshirech, Jewish Encyclopedia
  2. ↑ Międzyrzecz Korecki
  3. ↑ Avidov Lipsker, "Ma'aseh Bukh", in: Encyclopedia of Jewish Folklore and Tradition
  4. ↑ Morris M. Faierstein, "The Dibbuk in the Mayse Bukh", Shofar, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Fall 2011), pp. 94-103 {{jstor}10.5703/shofar.30.1.94}}
  5. 1 2 3 Ma'aseh book : book of Jewish tales and legends, vol. 2, 1934, Internet Archive
  6. ↑ Cyrus Adler, Gotthold Weil, MA'ASEH BOOKS, Jewish Encyclopedia
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Un beau livre d'histoires. Eyn shön Mayse bukh Fac-similé de l'editio princeps de Bâle (1602) doi:10.12685/aqzmv533
  8. ↑ Astrid Starck [de], La femme dans le Mayse-bukh, In: Jean Baumgarten, David Bunis (Eds.), Le yiddish. Langue, culture, société. CNRS Éditions, Paris 1999, pp. 39–64.
  9. ↑ יואב אלשטין ואריאלה קרסני, ""מעשה בוך": מגמות ותימטיקה במפנה המאה הי"ז" [ Yoav Elstein [he], Ariela Krasny, "Ma'aseh Buch: Trends and Thematics at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century" ]
    בתוך: אבידב ליפסקר, רלה קושלבסקי (עורכים), מעשה סיפור: מחקרים בסיפורת היהודית מוגשים ליואב אלשטיין, רמת גן: הוצאת אוניברסיטת בר-אילן, תשס"ו, עמ' 199–118.
  10. ↑ Un beau livre d’histoires. Eyn shön Mayse bukh. Fac-similé de l’editio princeps de Bâle (1602). Traduction du yiddish, introduction et notes par Astrid Starck [de] (= Schriften der Universitätsbibliothek. Bände 6/1 und 6/2). Schwabe, Basel 2004, 2008.
  11. 1 2 Majsebuch, aneb, Kniha jidiš legend a příběhů
  12. ↑ מעשה בוך. סיפורים ומעשיות ממסורת יהודי אשכנז
  13. ↑ Jindřich Vacek, stránky spisovatele - 01. Majsebuch
  14. ↑ Cena Josefa Jungmanna

Further reading