Stories within Stories

The stories presented in Peninnah Schram's highly anticipated Stories within Stories: From the Jewish Oral Tradition are drawn primarily from talmudic and midrashic sources, medieval texts, and the Israel Folktale Archives. Each enchanting story-within-a-story is part of the Jewish oral tradition and continues to enlighten, educate, and entertain audiences as have all of the author's previous works.

The types of stories found in this wonderful collection (described by Peninnah Schram as “frame and chain stories”) have been widely popular in both Jewish and non-Jewish literary traditions. Since Jews have lived in so many places, they have been influenced by the stories told by their surrounding neighbors. For example, this genre of tales has been especially popular in the Jewish stories of the Middle East, having been influenced by the structure and contents of Arabic literature.

Stories within Stories contains fifty stories, mostly made up of folktales. Various types of stories are interspersed so that a humorous story is followed by a romantic tale, which is followed by a religious tale, which is followed by a tall tale, and so on. The stories come from various ethnic communities represented in the Israel Folktale Archives including Morocco, Iraq, Kurdistan, Persia, Yemen, and Eastern Europe.

Gifted and highly acclaimed storyteller Peninnah Schram contributes to the ever-growing library of Jewish folklore collections, thus actively helping to restore the rich treasures of Jewish oral tradition in our contemporary world.