Elijah's Violin & Other Jewish Fairy Tales - Softcover

'as poignant and silly as anyone else's fairy tales'The Guardian

Schwartz supplies a concise introduction and retells the stories in a plain and simple prose which serves them well. An exotic and varied collection, intriguingly illustrated by Linda Heller. (Sunday Times)

good stories deserve retelling, and Schwartz retells them beautifully (Jewish Chronicle)

In this magical collection, Howard Schwartz has gathered together and retold thirty-six Jewish fairy tales that are at once otherworldly and earthy, pious and playful. Drawn from sources as diverse as Morocco and India, Spain and Eastern Europe, Babylon and Egypt, the stories are characterized by their infusion of traditional Jewish characters with the archetypal forms found in all fairy tales, or by their treatment of Jewish religious themes. The book combines the playfulness of fairy tales that will be loved by children with the author's depth of knowledge of the historical origins of the tales. Throughout one can find the quests and riddles of the traditional fairy tale along with the divine intervention that characterizes the Jewish fairy tale.