Fradl Shtok

Fradl Shtok (Yiddish: פֿראַדעל שטאָק) (also Fradel Stock, 1888 – 1952?)[1] was a Jewish-American Yiddish-language poet and writer, who immigrated to the United States from Galicia, Austria-Hungary, at the age of 18 or 19. She is known as one of the first Yiddish poets to use the sonnet form; and her stories, which were less well received than her poems in her lifetime, have since been recognized as innovative for their exploration of subjectivity, and, in particular, for their depiction of Jewish female characters at odds with traditional roles and expectations.[2][3][4]

Fradl Stock
Born1888
Skala-Podilska
Diedmaybe 1952
maybe California
Occupation(s)Poet and writer
Known forYiddish poetry

Biography

Fradl Shtok was born in the shtetl, or small town, of Skala, in eastern Galicia, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (today in Ukraine). Her mother died when she was one year old, and her father went to prison a few years later, for his part in the murder of a man during a brawl; after that she was raised by an aunt.[1][3] Shtok was a talented student, played the violin, and could recite from the works of the classic German poets Goethe and Schiller.[5]

In 1907, she immigrated to the United States, settling in New York City. Beginning in 1910, she published poems and stories in Yiddish periodicals and anthologies, mostly in publications of the literary group known as Di Yunge.[6] In 1914, Shtok was among a group of writers led by Joseph Opatoshu, who broke away from Di Yunge out of a philosophic disagreement, and published their own anthology, Di naye heym (The new home), edited by Opatoshu; not satisfied with their colleagues' emphasis on literary playfulness, the writers of Di naye heym were interested in exploring the ties between their own milieu and the past generation.[7] The anthology included a cycle of eight sonnets by Shtok.

Shtok was recognized in her own time and later as a significant lyric voice in Yiddish. Jacob Glatstein wrote appreciatively in retrospect: "Her poetry is elegant, original ... masterful ... capable of inscribing a beautiful chapter into Yiddish poetry".[8] In an analysis of two major anthologies of Yiddish poetry published in the early 20th century, the scholar Kathryn Hellerstein notes that "Shtok stands out as an innovator in verse forms, enriching the meters and stanzas of Yiddish poetry."[9] In Moyshe Bassin's anthology of Yiddish poetry over five centuries (Finf hundert yor yidishe poezye; 1917), volume two (covering the modern period), which included only a narrow selection of female poets (nine of the total 95 poets), Shtok was by far the best represented.[10] A generous selection of Shtok's poems also appeared in Ezra Korman's 1928 anthology of Yiddish poetry by women from the 16th century to the contemporary era (Yidishe dikhterins), which included 70 women poets.[11]

In 1919, Fradl Shtok published a collection of 38 stories, Gezamelte ertsehlungen. Most of the stories are set in a shtetl that resembles, or, in some instances, is directly or indirectly identified as her hometown Skala, while ten stories take place in a Jewish immigrant milieu in the United States. Contemporary reviews of the book were mixed, with one or two striking a particularly negative tone.[6]

Subsequently, Shtok withdrew from the Yiddish literary scene.[6] In 1927 she published a novel in English, Musicians Only, which received little positive attention from critics in either English or Yiddish.[6] A review in the New York Times criticized the novel for its "remarkably bad" writing but still admitted that it "assumes over the reader an unwilling fascination" thanks to its emotional authenticity.[12]

In 1942 Shtok was in contact with Abraham Cahan, editor of the Yiddish newspaper Forverts (The Forward), and he received from her a new story in Yiddish, "A soycher fun fel" (A fur merchant), which appeared in the newspaper on November 19, 1942.[1][13]

Her correspondence with Cahan indicated that she was at that time going by the name of Frances Zinn, and was living in California.[1] She likely died in Hollywood, California, in 1952.[1][14]

Publications

Books

  • 1919: Gezamelte ertsehlungen [stories]. New York: Farlag "Naye Tsayt"
  • 1927: Musicians Only [novel]. New York: Pelican

Stories

  • November 19, 1942: A soykher fun fel. Forverts

Works in translation

Stories

  • "The Archbishop" (Der erts-bishof), translated by Joachim Neugroschel. In: Neugroschel (Ed./Trans.), No Star Too Beautiful: Yiddish Stories from 1382 to the Present. New York: Norton, 2002. p.  462–469
  • "At the Mill" (Bay der mil), translated by Irena Klepfisz. In: Sandra Bark (Ed.), Beautiful as the Moon, Radiant as the Stars: Jewish Women in Yiddish Stories: an Anthology. New York: Warner Books, 2003. ISBN 978-0-446-69136-9. p. 75–81
  • "A Cut" (A shnit). Translated by Jordan Finkin and Allison Schaechter. Your Impossible Voice (19), 2019. [15]
  • "The First Patient" (Der ershter patsyent). Translated by Jordan Finkin and Allison Schachter. Pakn Treger, Summer 2020
  • "Sonnet"; "A Winter Echo"; "Dusks." Translated by Kathryn Hellerstein. In Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology, edited by Jules Chametzky, John Felstiner, Jilene Flanzbaum, and Kathryn Hellerstein. W. W. Norton, 2001. ISBN 978-0-393-04809-4.
  • "The Shorn Head" (Obgeshnitene hor), translated by Irena Klepfisz. In: Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz and Klepfisz (Eds.), The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women's Anthology. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989. p.  190–193
  • "The Veil" (Der Shleyer), translated by Brina Menachovsky Rose. In: Frieda Forman et al. (Eds.), Found Treasures: Stories by Yiddish Women Writers. Toronto: Second Story Press, 1994. ISBN 978-0-929005-53-9. p. 99–104
  • "Winter Berries" (Kalines), translated by Irena Klepfisz. In: Sandra Bark (Ed.), Beautiful as the Moon, Radiant as the Stars: Jewish Women in Yiddish Stories: an Anthology. New York: Warner Books, 2003. ISBN 978-0-446-69136-9. p. 21–27

References
  1. Kenvin, Helene. "Fradel Shtok: Author and Poet." JewishGen KehilaLinks. Last updated 13 September 2015. Retrieved 2016-05-13.
  2. "Fradl Shtok" [author biography]. In: Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001. Edited by Jules Chametzky, et al. ISBN 0-393-04809-8. p. 290–291. "Even the appreciative reviews praised her work in patronizing terms, failing to note how original and innovative were these terse stories and their treatment of the erotic desires and frustrations of women rebelling against the strictures of traditional Judaism."
  3. Kellman, Ellen. "Fradel Shtok." Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. 1 March 2009. Jewish Women's Archive (jwa.org). Retrieved 2016-05-13.
  4. Kellman, Ellen (1997). "Shtok, Fradel." In: Paula E. Hyman and Deborah Dash Moore (Eds.), Jewish Women in America: A Historical Encyclopedia. Vol. II, M-Z. New York: Routledge, 1997. p. 1249.
  5. "Shtok, Fradl" (1981). In: Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur [Biographical Dictionary of Modern Yiddish Literature]. New York: Congress for Jewish Culture. Vol. 8, col. 608–609.
  6. "Fradl Shtok" [author biography]. In: Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001. Edited by Jules Chametzky, et al. ISBN 0-393-04809-8. p. 290–291.
  7. Opatoshu, Joseph. "Yiddish Literature in the United States." Translated by Shlomo Noble. In: Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg (Eds.), Voices from the Yiddish: Essays, Memoirs, Diaries. New York: Schocken, 1975. p. 306–315; here: p. 313. "The split between the two wings [of Di Yunge] came in 1914. The esthetes – Zisha Landau, Mani Leib, and David Ignatov – took over the periodic anthology Shriftn. I. J. Schwartz, Joseph Rolnik, Chaimowitch, Fradel Shtok, and I published Di Naye Heym. Later Leivick and Boraisho joined us."
  8. Quoted in English translation from the Yiddish, in: "Fradel Schtok" [author biography], in Frieda Forman et al. (Eds.), Found Treasures: Stories by Yiddish Women Writers. Toronto: Second Story Press, 1994. p. 363–364.
  9. Hellerstein, Kathryn (2014). A Question of Tradition: Women Poets in Yiddish, 1586–1987. Stanford: Stanford University Press. p. 38.
  10. Hellerstein (2014), p. 33–34. Eleven of her poems were included, compared to no more than three each from the other female poets.
  11. Hellerstein (2014), p. 34. Shtok was represented with 12 poems. Hellerstein further observes: "The one poet that both Bassin and Korman present amply is Fradl Shtok" (p. 37).
  12. "A Distracted Woman". The New York Times. February 6, 1927. p. 22. Retrieved June 30, 2023.
  13. Neugroschel, Joachim. "Fradel Shtok" [translator's note]. In: Neugroschel (Ed./Trans.), No Star Too Beautiful: Yiddish Stories from 1382 to the Present. New York: Norton, 2002. p. 463. Neugroschel was apparently the first to call attention to the existence of Shtok's correspondence with Cahan; previously she had often been reported to have probably died in the 1930s.
  14. Hellerstein (2014), p. 431–432, note 50.
  15. Shtok, Fradl (2019). Translated by Finkin, Jordan; Schachter, Allison. "A Cut". Your Impossible Voice (19). Retrieved March 11, 2022.
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