Author Martin Green has just published a new translation of Falk Zolf's Yiddish-language classic, "On Foreign Soil", with a twist....this version starts in English, and gradually turns to Yiddish while you read. Originally published in 1945, this is a heart-warming coming-of-age story set in Imperial Russia. The outbreak of war in August 1914 thrusts Zolf, a 16-year-old yeshiva-bokher (rabbinical student), into the turmoil of 20th-century politics: war, revolution, nationalism, Zionism, and the rise of modern anti-Semitism.
Green's translation, published as a two-volume set, begins by introducing isolated words in Yiddish; later, phrases and whole sentences appear. By the end of Volume I, the book is half Yiddish. Volume II starts in English again but progresses more rapidly, so that the very last chapter is entirely in Yiddish. Despite this, the translator insists that his book is meant to be accessible to the reader with no previous knowledge of Yiddish. There are copious footnotes dealing with vocabulary, grammatical issues and cultural references, and at the end of each chapter, there is a detailed summary in English. For the faint-of-heart, there is even a complete "cheater's edition", all English, available on-line at the book's companion website, "www.onforeignsoil.com".
"If you had to choose one book that best deals with the Jewish experience in the 20th century," says the translator, "then you should probably read Exodus by Leon Uris. But my book would definitely be a close second."