Book of Fables

Book of Fables is a bilingual edition of Sefer Mesholim, an important collection of fables that was published in Yiddish in 1695. Occupying a significant and interesting place in Yiddish literary history, Sefer Mesholim provides valuable insight regarding the development of Yiddish language and literature and offers an unusual perspective on the cultural and social life of contemporary European Jewry.

Now, almost three hundred years after its original publication, Eli Katz has translated the thirty-four fables of Sefer Mesholim, derived principally from the Aesopic canon, and from both medieval Hebrew and German sources. The fables themselves were first adapted for a Yiddish reading audience in 1597 in Verona, Italy, and in the adaptation acquired a distinctively Ashkenazic Jewish flavor with much local Italian-Jewish vocabulary and coloration.