Yiddish Sonnet-ing (Women’s History Day Eight)

 Coming over in the wave of Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the first decade of the 1900s, Fradl Shtok left Galicia and found herself in New York City as a young woman. Having been raised by her aunt after her mother died and her father went to prison, perhaps Fradl was used to having to pave her own way. Whatever the case, within three years of coming to the U.S., she was publishing Yiddish poetry in anthologies and periodicals (often in Di Yunge‘s publications – the first well-known Yiddish literary poets’ movement in the U.S.).

Read about Fradl in In Geveb

Fradl, however, broke away early with other writers who chose to examine their relationship to the voices of the past, leading to her reputation as an important lyric voice during her own time, as well as later. Although her poems are much more widely known and better received, she also wrote stories, which often found female characters pushing against “tradition.”

After her stories were not received well, Fradl wrote an English novel, Musicians Only – which was not lauded in either the Yiddish or English scene. Later, she returned to writing in Yiddish, publishing in Der Forverts. Her name at that time had changed to Frances Zinn, and she lived in California.

To learn more about Fradl: Read her Jewish Women’s Archive bio, her genealogy, or her poems in the Women’s Anthology