SOURCE: Introductory note to "Under a Fence: A Revue," in Ashes Out of Hope: Fiction by Soviet-Yiddish Writers, edited by Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg, Schocken Books, 1977, pp. 193-95.

One of America's most highly respected literary critics and social historians, Howe was a longtime editor of the leftist magazine Dissent and a regular contributor to the New Republic. Greenberg was a Russian-born American poet, essayist, translator, and critic who dedicated himself to bringing Yiddish literature to English readers. In the following introduction to "Under a Fence," the critics provide an outline of the story.

When "Under a Fence" first appeared in the Soviet Yiddish periodical, Di royte velt, in 1929, its editor, perhaps anticipating that it would evoke a storm of attack from the more orthodox party-line critics, wrote: "It is a ring of allegorical and symbolic tales, mutually intertwined, expressed in a rich, rhythmic language … It is a...