Tradycja i nowoczesność w szundzie – konstruowanie żydowskości w opowieściach Nochema Meira Szajkiewicza (Szomera) i Jeszui Mezacha
Tradition and Modernity in the Shund – Jewishness in Stories Created by Nokhem Meir Shaykievitsh (Szomer) and Yeshua Mezakh.

Summary/Abstract: Yiddish popular literature, particularly that published at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, was an important carrier for modernist messages addressed to mass audiences – in this case the residents of shtetls. The article presents a comparative analysis of the ways in which Jewishness was represented in stories by Nokhem Meir Shaykievitsh (a.k.a. Szomer) and Yeshua Mezakh, authors often described as shund writers (creating short, easily accessible stories for the less discerning readers). Both authors evoked the heritage of the Haskalah to criticize the backwardness of shtetls and traditional institutions of Jewish social life. But while both drew creative inspiration from that reality, each offered a somewhat different take on Jewishness, presenting certain facets of the Jewish tradition in a positive light, and criticizing others. Still, although the variants of Jewishness depicted by Shaykievitsh and Mezakh may have varied from each other, they nonetheless clearly stood out from the better-known depictions found in the canon literature of the day.

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