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Ben-Amos, Dan. (ed.), Leonard J. Schramm, (trans.) Folktales of the 
Jews. Volume 2. Tales from Eastern Europe. Philadelphia: The Jewish 
Publication Society, 2007. Notes. Bibliography. Indexes. XLII+624. 
$75.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-8276-0830-6. 
 
The editors of the Folktales of the Jews collection, Dr. Dov Noy (Bar 
Ilan University) and Dr. Dan Ben-Amos (Pennsylvania University), are 
now presenting readers and experts with the second volume of the 
collection, Tales from Eastern Europe. This ongoing project was 
launched in 1992 by The Jewish Publication Society and by the Israel 
Folklore Archive, and the current volume sets a standard in the 
anthologization and interpretation of old or contemporary folk tales. This 
large collection gathered over 20,000 tales, about 70 of which are 
included in the published volumes. Gathered from an extremely generous 
area and from a large number of people, the legends included in this 
volume cover all types of folk narratives which were present in Jewish 
communities from this region. There are tales with fantasy and 
supernatural motifs, but also rabbinic, moralizing, anecdotic ones, and 
last but not least, historic tales or tales dealing with Jewish - local 
population interactions. There are also comic tales, which are well 
represented in this anthology. 

One of the great merits of the volume is, beyond the representative 
nature of the items selected, its highly scientific approach. The 
introduction is extremely useful (pages XV-XXXIX), as it includes a 
short presentation of the researched territory and of the population 
characteristics from the area where materials were gathered. The Jewish 
migration to Eastern Europe is discussed: the spoken language, the 
existing ethnological materials, which are presented in a historical 
manner, as well as the methods used to explore this large body of 
material belonging to individuals or associations. The structure of the 
volume includes, according to the editors, the presentation of the tale 
proper, with an indication of the performer’s name, the date and place of 
recording, followed by its systematic analysis. It also presents the 
cultural, historic and literary background of the tale, together with its 
classification according to a wider typological system of the motifs. The 
tale is compared to other types of tales from the Israel Folk Archives or 
the international index, specifically Thompson’s motif index. Thus the 
large majority of the tales is accompanied by an ample scholarly 
apparatus, which is extremely useful to researchers. A synthesis of the 
motifs included in these tales is attached at the end of the volume (589-

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617). Thus, the 71 tales included in the present volume occupy 488 
pages, to which another 180 pages of general criticism is added. The 
short biographies of the tellers and those of the collectors/editors of these 
tales are also well described (most of them live in Poland). The general 
bibliography of the volume is impressive, it occupies 76 pages, which 
makes the book extremely useful for those interested in gathering and 
summarizing classical or contemporary Jewish folklore. 

The editors are to be congratulated on the structure of this volume. 
It is also worth noting that the first volume of this series, Folktale of 
Jews. I. Tales from the Sephardic Dispersion, received the National 
Jewish Book Award. We can all look forward to the following 
announced volumes: Folktales of Arabia, Folktales of the Orient and 
Folktales of Other Lands. 

 
Antoaneta Olteanu 
Bucharest University 
Bucharest, Romania