Number 55 Fall 2007 / 5768  Do You Know What Time it Isn't?
Zuni Maud: Yiddish Bohemian  It’s a breezy, late September day
in Warsaw, 1929. There is a stranger in the chess room at the
Literatn fareyn, the Jewish Literary Union at Tlomatski 13 – a
short, swarthy man chain-smoking and wearing a curly wool coat
so long that its hem touches the floor. He has an odd look on
his face, somewhere between anger and sadness. His fingers are
rough and stained with ink. Without uttering a word, he has
managed to beat everyone in the room at chess. The Union’s
housekeeper approaches several times to ask who he is and what
he’s doing there, but he doesn’t answer. Instead, he growls at
her like a bear, she says. Frightened, she runs to the Union’s
secretary, Meylekh Ravitsh, who jumps up and says, “Aha! That
has to be Zuni Maud! He should have been here days ago.” Ravitsh
hurries to greet him, the “American,” who had come to Warsaw to
present the puppet theater he created along with fellow artist
Yosl Cutler.  Zuni Maud (