"The Jewish mothers' songs and stories put wind in the sails of the male Yiddish writers' creativity. They in turn transformed the mother into the primary figure among their female heroines. Modern Yiddish literature attained its maturity with the work of three classical masters: Mendele Moykher Sforim, Sholem Aleichem, and I. L. Peretz. These three authors were the literary forebears whom subsequent generations of Yiddish writers both emulated and rebelled against. Under the influence of the liberating movements of socialism and Zionism, the Jewish male grew more self-confident and began to consider the Jewish woman as his partner-in-arms in the fight for a better life. At least, he did so superficially...We Jews have every right to be proud of our Yiddish literature, which flowered in such a short time, and which explored both the heights and the depths of Jewish thought and feeling. But the depiction of Jewish women is, with some exceptions, not among our literature's finest accomplishments. Throughout all of Yiddish literature, beginning with the classical writers, for instance Mendele and his portrayal of Beyle in Fishke the Cripple, or Sholem Aleichem's depiction of Tevye's daughters in Tevye the Milkman, or Rokhele in Stempenyu, or Bashevis's "Yentl the Yeshiva Boy" and Grade's The Agunah, there is an undercurrent of sympathy for the Jewish woman, as well as guilt about her double enslavement, both as woman and as Jew...Thus, some male Yiddish prose writers did faithfully and realistically describe the situation of women in the late-nineteenth century. They depicted their female characters with great tenderness and understanding. But as a general rule, they avoided looking deeper into the more complicated qualities that make up a woman's individuality. The male writer sympathized with the woman's plight; he idealized her, sang her praises, wondered at her, but he knew nothing about who she really was. He did not illuminate her from within."