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"The interest is there,"
Shevrin says, citing meetings
of Yiddish scholars that she
has recently attended. "There
were hundreds of people at-
tending from all over the
world and the papers were
fascinating, on subjects rang-
ing from linguistics to
literature and geography. But
most Yiddishists are in-
terested in collecting ma-
terial rather than in trans-
lating."
In her 21 years as a
translator, the tall, ebullient
Shevrin has contribued richly
to keeping these memories
accessible, despite the con-
stant search for fresh ma-
terial.
Shevrin grew up in New
York City, the daughter of a
rabbi who came to the United
States from Russia in the
midst of a rabbi-glut. "He did
not become associated with a
congregation until he retired
to Florida at age 62," Shevrin
recalls. Instead he worked as
a butcher, as a furrier and as
an insurance agent, but he
was always a literary and
scholarly man who inspired
his daughter and often
pitched in with a quick bit of
translation expertise over the
phone up until his death two
years ago. Shevrin attended a
folkshul for middle and high
school and then Cornell
University, where Yiddish
scholarship seemed light
years away from her plans to
marry and have a family.
In fact, Shevrin's first Yid-
dish translation was pure
serendipity. Married, raising
a family of four children and
living in Topeka, Kansas, she
tried her hand at an Isaac
Bashevis Singer short story
that had been published in
the Jewish Forward, just for
a lark, the way others might
work on a crossword puzzle. It
was 1967, and Singer's repu-
tation was reaching beyond
the small circle fo the For-
ward's Yiddish-speaking
subscribers who read his
works in serialization in the
Friday and Saturday editions.
She sent the translated
work to Singer, following it up
with a phone call. "Surprise.
His number was listed in the
phone book, and he invited
my husband and me to lunch
when we visited New York Ci-
ty shortly thereafter. It was
Steinberg's Vegetarian Res-
taurant, right near his home,
where everyone knew him,"
she recalls.
The event offered a few
more surprises. Singer, who
writes strictly in Yiddish,
converses only in English,
and he expressed more in-
terest in Howard Shevrin's
psychological research on
dreams than in her own bud-
ding career as a translator.
Furthermore, a trip back to
Singer's apartment became a
descent into chaos. Papers,
manuscripts, old clippings
from the Forward were
everywhere.
Despite appearances, the
meeting clicked. That day,
Singer offered Shevrin a
chance to translate another
story, which he pulled out
from under the living room
sofa. Entitled "The Letter
Writer," her English transla-
tion was published in the New
Yorker magazine and again in
a collection of Singer's short
stories called The Seance.
Other short stories, and the
opportunity to work on the
novel Enemies, A Love Story
followed, but the collabora-
tion was not always entirely
gratifying for Shevrin.
"Singer wants it both ways.
He doesn't give much credit to
his translators," Shevrin says,
refusing to divulge any more
details on the suject.
t is easier to translate
for dead Yiddish writers
than for living ones," she
once remarked enigmatically.
Several years ago, while
still working on the projects of
I. B. Singer, and after having
moved to Ann Arbor from
Topeka, Shevrin realized
that, despite the widespread
popularity of Fiddler on the
Roof many other works by
Sholem Aleichem were not
available in translation.
Shevrin decided to do some-
thing about it. She set about
making contact with Sholem
Aleichem's heirs, including
his daughter Bel Kaufman,
well-known in her own right
as the author of Up the Down
I
Staircase.
The family members, who
speak no Yiddish and had lit-
tle interest in working on
Sholem Aleichem's legacy
themselves, were happy to
give Shevrin permission
to translate several major
works. This is when Shevrin's
problems began.
"The publishers wouldn't
consider these projects until I
had permission from the
family, and the family didn't
want to authorize any projects
until I had a publisher," she
says.
About seven years ago, after
hiring a copyright attorney
and talking to several pub-
lishers, she negotiated a con-
tract with the family to
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87