Storyteller: Hershele gets a meal

The clever, if impoverished, Hershele, or Hershel Ostropolier, appears in many Jewish folktales. Ostropol is a town in the Ukraine, about 135 miles from Kyiv, that once had a sizable Jewish population. Hershele is a trickster; a stand-in for all the people who had only their brains to use against those who sought to crush them. This tale comes from “Best-Loved Folktales of the World,” edited by Joanna Cole.

There was once a wealthy man with a reputation for both supporting and terrorizing the poor. How could this be? Every Shabbat, he invited someone needy to supper. Sitting him at the head of his table, he peppered the man with so many questions that he had no chance to eat. By the end of the meal, when the food was gone, the host then asked, “Why do you talk so much that you don’t eat?” And the poor soul went away hungry.

When Hershele learned of this indignity, he hatched a plan. He asked the shammes of the synagogue, the caretaker, to wangle him an invitation to the man’s house.

And so it happened that Hershele received his invitation. As he expected, he was seated at the head of the table and introduced like an honored guest.

The host picked up the plate of fish and helped himself. Without offering it to Hershele, he asked, “So where do you come from?”

When Hershele told him, the man asked after a friend he had there.

Reaching across the host to spear a large piece of fish, Hershele replied, “Oh, he died.”

The guest was in such shock that he dropped his fork. “Really? But what of his business partner?”

Hershele chomped away on his fish. At last he replied, “He died too.”

The man turned ashen. “He too! Why, he owed me money! What of his son?”

Hershele spooned some potatoes onto this plate. He took a big swallow and replied, “He died too.”

How host could barely contain himself. “His son, too! But what of his brother, who lived in the big house at the edge of town?”

Hershele reached for the challah. “Oh, he’s dead.”

The man was nearly apoplectic. “Uncle,” he said. “Are you telling me that everyone in your hometown is dead?”

Hershele finished the bread. “Sir,” he said at last, “when I am eating, the rest of the world is as good as dead. By the way, you haven’t touched your fish. Eat up, it’s really good!”

Caren Schnur Neile, Ph.D., appears weekly on public radio WLRN. She teaches at Florida
Atlantic University. Her latest book, with Sam Ron, is A Jewish Journey. Visit her at
carenneile.com