To the Editor:
I always enjoy S. T. Hecht’s stories about North Jersey Jewish life, but—let’s face it— those translations from the Yiddish leave something to be desired. Aside from the transliteration from Yiddish into something that sounds like less than a Litvak can bear (we pronounce “death” to sound like tayt not toyt), Mr. Hecht is very free with the meaning of the original. For example, he ends his most recent story (“In Tails, Tallis, and Tachrichim,” February 1953) with an excellent pun in Yiddish: Mir lachen fun (sic) toyt. But he translates this to mean: Death tickles our fancy. How fancy can you get! Not by the wildest flight of fancy does that expression deal with tickling or with fancy. Why not play it straight and say “We’re laughing at Death.” I admit that it is much more difficult to translate Honig hot er dort nit gehkt. But why drag in the business about honey served on wafers and omit the really pointed word “licked”? The only way I can explain these departures from the pristine Yiddish is to suppose that Mr. Hecht is playing an elaborate joke on those who have no idea of what the idioms mean. If that is the case, he is dealing very harshly with the goyim, both inside and outside the Temple.
Edmund B. Feldman
West Orange, New Jersey
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