Fradl Shtok

"They played some sad melody that drifted in through the window keeping people awake half the night. Some sadness would then grip the heart so you wouldn't know what it was you wanted."

""So what, a young boychik is better? Playing cards and wasting his time dencing. At least a stable man... So what if he's a little stingy. Vell, a person's got to have some kind of defect." ("Sisters")"

"Gosi, on the other hand, was always a silent type, taciturn, stubborn. And while nobody blamed her, she didn't want to go to parties, always staying quietly at home, obstinately waiting for something. ("Sisters")"

"Annie is an ignorant girl, who can barely sign her name. But even she can feel the music in her head. ("A Cut")"

"One must be stubborn to achieve one's goals, to be nobody's fool. ("A Cut")"

"His laughter is meant to hide the greed that has begun to glint in his eyes. ("A Fur Salesman")"

"the silence stood like an iron wall, unyielding; it lay upon them like a heap of stones. ("The First Patient")"

"Just in the past two days the cherry trees had become a riot of blossoms. ("In the Village")"

"She took a quick, furtive look at him and felt her heart blushing. ("The Daredevil")"

"The town was in an uproar for some time after the news that Gitman, the Talmud teacher, was a freethinker. Imagine, if they hadn't realized it in time he might have converted the whole town. (first lines of "A Glass")"

"All this talk agitated Nessi. It seemed to her as though they were taking something holy and defiling it. Her train, her happiness. ("The First Train")"

"Hungry, she'd run to the cemetery and undam a river of tears."

"Esther was indeed a friend, but a friend is not as deeply rooted in one's heart as one's misery, as one's grief."

"People said: Sheyndl is right as the world. And so decent. But she: inside her heart cried. Every time she looked at her shaytele with the bangs in front, her heart would twinge. . .her head was already bound."

"Old age brings a person troubles. Troubles make a person-make her old and gray before her time. Already little by little and thirty years old."

"In modern Yiddish writing, the moral, spiritual, and emotional capital of generations of Jewish women was utilized by male and female writers alike...Female prose writers, such as Fradl Shtok, Esther Kreitman, Rokhl Korn, Kadia Molodowsky, and Khava Rosenfarb, also deepened the awareness and understanding of the feminine contribution to Jewish civilization."

"Though she commanded attention by being the first Yiddish poet to use the sonnet form, Fradel's primary energy seemed to have gone into fiction. Her immigration must have had severe consequences on her writing and she obviously experienced language conflicts: Erzeylungen (Stories) appeared in 1919 and then an English novel, For Musicians Only in 1927. Both received poor reviews. Erzeylungen was set in Eastern Europe and in America. Some stories, humorous and satiric, depict Jewish society at critical moments: "Der ershter ban" (The first train) in a small shtetl or "Der ershter patsyent" (The first patient) of a young dentist in America. Other stories are more somber and describe the conflict between inner longings and social (i.e. Jewish) norms. Trapped by social and religious mores, Fradel's characters often cloak their feelings in "appropriate" behavior."

"I turn to Fradel Schtok and know that another woman writer experienced similar conflicts over mame-loshn. I read her stories of the shtetl and America and see the two worlds between which she was caught...All these Jewish women-Julia, Nadia, Patti, Gina, Fradel, Kadia-are my ancestors. They are mayne bobes, mumes, shvester, my grandmothers, aunts, sisters. Mir darfn zikh bakenen. We need to become acquainted."