SOURCE: "Introduction," in The Stories of David Bergelson: Yiddish Short Fiction from Russia, Syracuse University Press, 1996, pp. xiii-xxxii.

In the following excerpt, Werman examines Bergelson's legacy as a Yiddish writer, and reviews a number of his short works.

On a mild December evening in Jerusalem in 1993, I attended a memorial meeting for the Yiddish writers and other artists who were murdered by Stalin after World War II. The event was very well attended; every seat in the library of the Russian Immigrant Society's Zionist Forum was occupied, and many people stood in the aisles and at the back of the crowded, overheated room, fanning themselves with envelopes, handkerchiefs, anything that came to hand. The Russians had not forgotten their brothers who were murdered during the dark days of Stalin's reign for the crime of keeping Yiddish culture alive.

The invited speakers sat in a semicircle at the front...