The Clever Little Tailor

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Solomon Simon (1895-1970), a writer, educator, and editor, is perhaps best remembered as a children's author, particularly for his renditions in Yiddish and in English of the Chelm stories. His novel The Clever Little Tailor spins tales of a Jewish tailor who impresses kings, judges, thieves, and even giants with his sharp wit. Infused with Eastern European Jewish humor and folkways, the book is of interest to adults as well as children.

Simon originally published The Clever Little Tailor in Yiddish as a serial in the Kinder Zhurnal. Simon's grandson, David R. Forman, has now translated the novel for the first time into English. This is of special interest to Yiddish learners of all ages as the novel is available as a bilingual English-Yiddish text.

Join translator Forman in conversation with literary scholar Miriam Udel, as they discuss The Clever Little Tailor, Solomon Simon's life and thought, and his place in Yiddish children's literature.

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About the Speakers

David R. Forman, PhD, is the grandson of the Yiddish author Solomon Simon. Forman was first a calligrapher and graphic artist, then a psychology researcher and college professor before finally returning to his early love of writing. His poetry has been published online, in anthologies, and in literary journals. He began studying Yiddish in his fifties, in order to fulfill a lifelong vow of reading his grandfather’s work. He lives in Ithaca, New York where he teaches Elementary Yiddish at Cornell University. He has also worked at Cornell University Library, first in support of an online exhibition about the Jewish People's Fraternal Order, then as Jewish Institutional Ledgers Cataloger. In the fall of 2021, Kinder-Loshn Publications released The Clever Little Tailor by Solomon Simon, Forman's first book-length, Yiddish-to-English translation.

Miriam Udel is associate professor of German Studies and Jewish Studies at Emory University, where her teaching focuses on Yiddish language, literature, and culture. She holds an AB in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and a PhD in Comparative Literature, both from Harvard University. She was ordained in 2019 as part of the first cohort of the Executive Ordination Track at Yeshivat Maharat, a program designed to bring qualified mid-career women into the Orthodox rabbinate.

Udel’s academic research interests include 20th-century Yiddish literature and culture, Jewish children’s literature, and American-Jewish literature. She is the author of Never Better!: The Modern Jewish Picaresque (University of Michigan Press), winner of the 2017 National Jewish Book Award in Modern Jewish Thought and Experience. She is the editor and translator of Honey on the Page: A Treasury of Yiddish Children’s Literature (NYU Press, 2020), winner of the Reference Award of the Association of Jewish Libraries. The 2021 puppet film Labzik: Tales of a Clever Pup, released by Theater Emory, was based on her translation. Awarded an NEH Public Scholar grant this year, she is currently working on a critical study of Yiddish children’s literature.