Mishpoche Mashber

Falling Colors, originally uploaded by valcs.

Schneur Zalman of NY commenting to mentalblog.com: The Family Mashber by Der Nister:

There are at least 2 Yiddish editions of this work. A 1 volume edition published in Moscow in the 1970's or 1980's. I purchased this in NYC at the book store at the Forward many years ago.

There is a more complete version published in NY by IKUF after WW2 (1940's) which is much longer. This manuscript I believe was smuggled out of the USSR.

The SOVETISH HEIMLAND published parts of the so called 3rd volume a number of years ago. I plowed through this work in Yiddish first in the Soviet edition and then read the additions in the NY edition and then the material published in the HEIMLAND.

The book certainly is on par with anything my Vilner landsman Reb Chaim Grade wrote and Der Nister is certainly right up there with Grade, the Singer brothers, Opatoshu, and yes Sholom Asch (who supposedly betrayed the Jewish people) as among the greatest OF YIDDISH LITERARY FIGURES.

Der Nister paints in my opinion a very realistic portrait of the Jewish community in the Ukraine. The alliance between the gvirim and the rabbis and the rebbes, the fact that most Breslover followers were "an obgerisene"

But Der Nister is careful not to attack the religion itself. If he was living in Poland, the book would have soared to even higher spiritual and theological realms, as one sees hints of this in the Yiddish original. But alas he was writing in a very restricted environment.

The scenes in the cemetery and the Breslever asifos are memorable. But especially interesting is his portrait of the social, economic and family lives of Ukrainian Jews especially the grvirim. To me the Mashbers are probably a family like the Horensteins related by marriage to rebbes, rich and learned and well versed in the paths of Chassidius.