Ruth Murphy Translations

New Works

B. Y. Bialostotzsky's Binele: a mayse fun a yingele ṿos hot zikh gelozt zukhn dos land fun eybiḳn yontev ("Binele:

A story of a young boy who sets out to find the Land of Endless Holiday – dos land fun eybikn yontev") - June 202

I'm very happy to announce the publication of  my translation of B. Y. Bialostotzky's well-known and beloved children's story,  Binele: a mayse fun a yingele ṿos hot zikh gelozt zukhn dos land fun eybiḳn yontev ("Binele: A story of a young boy who sets out to find the Land of Endless Holiday – dos land fun eybikn yontev"), released by Ben Yehuda Press. It is released in both a single English-only volume and a bilingual Yiddish-English version. We were very lucky to have an introduction written by the well-known scholar of Jewish literature, Dr. Michael Weingrad, a specialist in Jewish fantasy literature and author of the article "Why There Is No Jewish Narnia" (Jewish Review of Books Spring 2010). The text includes all original illustrations by Note Kozlovski, Leah Port and Shaul Kaminski, a glossary with relevant vocabulary, and afterwards by the translator and editor.

 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 - a quest made even more poignant as we know what the author did not: Binele was published on the even of the Holocaust and the almost total destruction of Binele's world.

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. A contemporary review in the Yiddish newspaper Der Forvert (8 September 1940) describes it:

          “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 Bialostotsky is a gifted poet. He has a rich imagination, a flair for beautiful words and an aptitude for embodying thoughts in pictures.

          Binele, the hero of the tale, himself possesses a poetic soul. “He loved to see the bright faces, everyone in clean and tidy clothes, the flags and the banners. He loved to hear happy singing and to see everyone joyful . . .” He also loved to hear “wonder-tales about distant paths, about enchanted caves, stories about far-off islands, about hidden treasures, and stories about fantastical lands where an endless holiday reigns among the people.”

           Binele not only loves to listen to stories that others tell him, but also to invent his own, to sit and dream, let his imagination fly across the skies and clouds of fantastical lands and worlds.

           Binele is a Jewish child from a poor worker’s family. He dreams, therefore, of a land of righteousness and justice, “a land without tears, without want, where all are well-fed and satisfied, no one is bowed down, no one is wearied, no one is afflicted.”

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.

An English-only version is currently available as an ebook; to order as a hardcopy, please contact me or Ben Yehuda Press.