ARTS&LIFE
BOOK REVIEW C

hana Blankshteyn 
had amassed a world 
of experience in the 
1920s, when, in her 60s, she 
took up writing fiction in 
Yiddish. Born in Vilna around 
1860, she had traveled to France 
and Germany as a young girl 
to further her education, had 
married and divorced and then 
married again, moved to Kiev 
with her second husband, and, 
after her second divorce, lived 
with a married daughter in St. 
Petersburg. 
Blankshteyn served as a nurse 
in the Russian army during 
WWI, before returning to her 
native Vilna to a career as a 
social worker, political can-
didate, founder of a women’s 
rights organization, publisher 
and, eventually, fiction writer. 
Her fiction first appeared in 
Yiddish periodicals in Vilna; 
nine of the stories were repub-
lished in a collection titled 
Noveles (Novelas). The book 
appeared in July 1939, two 
weeks before the author died, 
and a couple of months before 
the Germans conquered Poland. 
Blankshteyn, a sensitive observ-
er of the change in Jewish Vilna, 
was thus spared encountering 
what would happen. Most of the 
book’s intended readers were 
murdered; the book almost 
totally disappeared; likewise any 
memory of the author. 

STORIES GET A NEW LIFE
But Anita Norich, professor 
emerita of English and Jewish 
Studies at the University of 
Michigan, came across a sur-
viving copy at the Center for 
Jewish History in New York 
City. Norich now presents 
Blankshteyn’s book of short 
stories in English translation as 
Fear and Other Stories (Wayne 
State University Press, 2022). 
In these stories, we meet a 
variety of Jews and non-Jews in 
modern Europe. 
In Paris, an artist’s model 
keeps a painting by her late 
husband, depicting Jewish men 
praying in a synagogue in his 
distant birthplace. She explains 
her sentimental attachment 
to that painting to her daugh-
ter. As her career wanes, the 
woman sells the painting and 
eventually abandons her daugh-
ter. Memory of that painting 
remains the daughter’s one weak 
connection to her Jewish roots, 
until . . . 
In another story, a studious 
young woman celebrates her 
graduation — first in her class 
in mathematics — by allowing 
herself to attend a graduation 
picnic with other university 
students. She feels flattered by 
the attention of a handsome 
and confident male student, but 
when she drowses, her subcon-
scious discomfort surfaces in 
fantastic dreams. 
In another, an up-and-com-
ing communist leader has a 
problem: His fiancée, a plain 
and quiet girl, insists on marry-
ing under a chuppah. She has 
promised that to her Chasidic 
grandfather. Her fiance has been 
giving speeches in favor of the 
new decree against religious 
wedding ceremonies. He could 
certainly find a more glamorous 
match, but . . . 
A resourceful young woman 
deals with strained circum-
stances: Her husband went 
off to war and then chose not 
to return to her. As a single 
mother, Sheyndele used a small 
fund from her uncle in Africa 
to finance her university educa-
tion in biology and now works 

A review of Fear and Other 
Stories by Chana Blankshteyn, 
translated by Anita Norich.

Rescued 
Yiddish 
Stories

LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

104 | MAY 19 • 2022 

Anita Norich