'Fiddler' meets 'The Sopranos': A gritty, forgotten novel by Sholom Aleichem is published in English for the first time

(JTA) - Move over, Tevye the dairyman. Make room for Moshkele the thief, the rough and tumble rogue hero from the wrong side of the shtetl in a newly rediscovered work of fiction by Sholom Aleichem.

The recent publication of "Moshkele the Thief: A Rediscovered Novel" (Jewish Publication Society/University of Nebraska Press), translated from the original Yiddish and with an introduction by Curt Leviant, marks the first ever English-language translation of the novella by perhaps the most popular and most widely read Yiddish writer.

Sholom Aleichem, the pen name of Shalom Rabinowitz (1859-1916),...