Abstract
Fradel Shtok’s Yiddish poetry and prose is distinctive for its treatment of the inner sensual lives of Jewish women. Immigrating to America from the Galician shtetl of Skale at age seventeen in 1907, she published poems and short stories in several anthologies and literary journals, especially those of the literary group Di Yunge [The Young Generation]. Although she showed great promise as a poet and prose writer, she was discouraged by the unenthusiastic reception of her collection of short stories by leading critics in New York in 1919 and withdrew from the Yiddish literary scene. No collection of her poetry ever appeared. In recent decades, feminist poets and literary historians have rediscovered Shtok’s work and made it known to English-language readers through translation and critical interpretation.