On Foreign Soil (Hardcover)

by Martin Green (Author), Falk Zolf (Author)
Key Phrases: vun alle seiten, die füess, der mameh, Yudel Kotik, The Rov, Mike Pradniuk (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"...a classic of the genre...could well become a serious candidate for the Governor General's literary award for translation." -- Saul Silverman, The Ottawa Jewish Bulletin, Mar.

"...a worthy sequel to the memoirs of Yekheskel Kotik." -- Uriel Weinreich, "Oyf Fremder Erd", Israelite Press, 1945

"...a worthy sequel to the memoirs of Yekheskel Kotik." -- Max Weinreich,

"...by the end, it's half Yiddish....a hugely quixotic and entirely admirable enterprise." -- Martin Levin, The Globe and Mail, Jan. 6, 2001

"...by the end, it's half Yiddish...a hugely quixotic and entirely admirable enterprise." -- Martin Levin, The Globe and Mail, Jan. 6,

Product Description
Author Falk Zolf lovingly describes life in his shtetl (village) of Zastavia prior to the First World War. As a young boy, the most pressing issue in his life is whether he will continue to follow the "derekh ha-yoysher" (path of righteousness), or be drawn instead into the secular world of his older brother, the "apikoyros" (freethinker). The outbreak of war in August 1914 thrusts the 16-year-old yeshiva-bokher into the turmoil of 20th-century politics: war, revolution, nationalism, Zionism, and the rise of modern anti-semitism. The book follows Zolf’s adventures, from the tragic to the humorous, as fate leads him on a remarkable quest through the length and breadth of Old Russia. The book is remarkable for the way in which Zolf’s personal story is played out against a background of world-shaking historical events. “Oyf Fremder Erd” was first published in Winnipeg in 1945.

About the translation: This unique translation is designed to let the reader experience the story, to the greatest extent possible, in its original Yiddish form. At first, isolated words are introduced in Yiddish; later, short phrases and finally whole sentences. To the very end of the book, enough English is retained so that the reader can follow the thread of the story; but the reader with an ear for Yiddish will find enjoyment of the book greatly enhanced by the rich Yiddish dialogue and colorful expressions.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 359 pages
• Publisher: Benchmark Publishing (December 14, 2000)
• ISBN-10: 0968836100
• ISBN-13: 978-0968836101
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,223,118 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On foreign soil witha native tongue, September 8, 2004

By	Zalman Alpert (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: On Foreign Soil: Tales of a Wandering Jew (Paperback)

This is a very poignant and important coming of age memoir. The author a Lithuanain jew describes in colorful detail his youth, the shtetel he grew up in and his extended family and friends.
Of particular importance to contemporary readers are his portrayal of the Slobodka yeshiva and its spiritual director the so called Alter of Slobodka Rabbi Noson Zvi Finkel.A particular important character in the book is the then rav of Rakow, rav Abraham kalmanowitz who shows communal leadership even as a young small town rabbi. Of course he was to become a key player in the Vaad hatzolah in the U.S. during World war 2.
Zolf also is a bit player in the Russian revolution and paints a wondeful portrayal of the first World War and its affect on east Europe's Jewish population. The hunger poverty and destruction described is unbelievable.
Mr. Green's translation is also unique. rather than translating the book , parts of the book are kept in Yiddish but transliterated. This may be a way for the novice to learn some Yiddish, but makes the book very difficult to read and cumbersome.
Nevertheless the book is worth the difficult navigational process, as it contains many gems in both fact and in its rich and idiomatic white Russian Yiddish sprinkled with more than a tad of Russian words including some wonderful curses.
I have not read Kotik's memoirs so I can not compare the two volumes, but by itself this is a worthy account of the suffering of the Jews in 20th century eastern Europe