פס תמונות

Selected Tales from the Archives

As of 2026, IFA contains over 25,000 folktales from 70 Jewish and non-Jewish ethnic groups living today in Israel. The folktales were collected over a period of 70 years. Below are several examples in English.

Bring the Priest or the Rabbi

Abie is lying in bed, dying.
– Becky – he says – call me in a priest.
– A priest, – she says – are you crazy or something? You mean a rabbi.
– what, – he says – and give him the smallpox?

IFA 9912, told by Reuven Shefer, recorded by Michael Stanislavsky, Canada.

The Coming of the Jews to Ethiopia

The Jews came to Ethiopia through the Red Sea at the time of Menelik the first, the first Menelik.

Well, because there was trade between Israel and Ethiopia and across the Red Sea during the time of the Queen of Sheba.
And he [Solomon] and the Queen of Sheba had a child, one child from Solomon. So he went to see his father, from Egypt. And when Menelik went to see his father, he wanted to stay there, except he couldn’t, because there were two kings in Israel. There was Solomon there, and there was Menelik there, so the people were divided. So the people said he had to go back to his place.

Solomon said… he gathered the people, and said they should give their firstborn child to Menelik so that they can go with him to Ethiopia, to his place; and everybody gave their firstborn and he came to Ethiopia, and he brought Moses’ tablet, the Ark of the Covenant, the five Books of Moses; he brought the Ark with him.

So he came and settled around Tigray region and Woggera also. He was in Woggera. So Gideon was born from Menelik, and there were seven Gideons. The seven Gideons ruled 435 years. A king came from Shoa, from this region and went to Woggera, and killed Menelik and crowned a woman, queen.
There was a king, Yitz’hak… There was a king called Yitz’hak, from Shoa. He went to Gonder, Woggera, and killed Gideon… the seventh Gideon. And then the kingship was transferred to Christianity. Starting from that time we became servants, and we came to live it.

IFA 19355, told by Kes Berhane Wundu, recorded by Ina Ruth Sarin, translated from Amharic by Getahun Tezazu Mamo, Ethiopia.

A Servant When He Reigns

In a certain kingdom in olden days it was the custom to choose a king by the will of heaven. A rare bird, known as the Bird of Happiness, was sent forth when the king died, and whomever’s head the bird rested on, he became king. Once it came to pass that when the ruling king died and the bird was sent forth, it rested on a slave’s head. The slave used to earn his daily bread playing the drum and dancing at weddings, dressed up in feathered cap and wearing a belt made of lamb’s hooves.
When the slave was chosen as king, he ordered a small hut built near the royal palace. He put inside it his treasured possessions, his feathered cap, his belt made of lamb’s hooves, and his drum, as well as a big mirror.
The ministers wondered very much and asked the king to explain his strange behavior.
– You have to gard your dignity even when you are alone, – they reprimanded him.
The king answered: – I was a slave before I became king. Thus I want to remind myself that I was a slave. Only then will I not imagine myself greater than you and other men; only then will I not feel proud in my heart.

IFA 280, told by Josef Shmuli, recorded by Zvi Moshe Haimovitch, Iraq.
This tale was translated and published in: Folktales of Israel, edited by Dov Noy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963. p. 171-172.

The Rock in the Cave

Well, we have a cave, to the East of the village, which is large and deep. You go down into it by means of steps. These are not steps that were put there by anyone: they are all one carving, all of stone. All right. You go down these steps, and you find in the middle of the cave two columns; one of these columns is finished. I mean the work on it is finished, while the other still has a little rock protruding on top, a bump protruding from the stone. When we saw this, we asked our parents why the whole cave is properly fixed except that that rock is still there. “Thereby hangs an ancient tale,” they told us.

“What is it?”

Well, they said, the man who was carving it up, this cave, was old, and was the brink of the grave, as we Arabs say. That is, he was about to die. As he was carving in it, or rather he was about to finish it except for the little rock on the column, and he sent his wife to bring him some food. Before she left, he told her not to delay or linger at all, for it seems he was very hungry. His wife went to bring him some food, when all of a sudden she found that their neighbors’ son had died. She went over to their neighbors’ so they would not be angry with her; if she didn’t go, that is. She went there, stayed a while, went back home, put the food for her husband in a bundle, and took it to him. Over to that cave.
Said he to her:– Why did you delay? What did I tell you?
– Old man – she replied – I went and found our neighbors’ son dead, and I said to myself: There is nothing to do but to go over there for a while lest they get angry at me. I went to their house for a while, then came back and brought your food.
– Dead? – he said.
– Dead – she answered – Of course, every man must die.
– and I since I have grown old, then must I die?
– Of course – she said.
– Then why should I work and put myself to trouble?
So he up and threw away the tools he worked with, the pick, the hoe, and what have you, he threw them on the ground and went home.
Said he: – I am through with working. If I am going to die, I refuse to work.
That’s why he left that rock, and it stayed there.

IFA 907, recorded by Salman Falah, Israeli Druze.

The Jinn

The jinn, of course, live underground in all places, but in Nablus, where the soil is light, they can come up with the greatest ease and therefore in that region they are plagued by them more than elsewhere.

A woman I know, a widow who lived by herself, was about to go to bed one stormy night when she heard a knock at her door. A cousin of hers was outside:– Come quick, ya bint khali,– he said – our cousin is about to die!

The woman threw her clothes on and stepped out, and went behind her cousin to his fathers’ house. She was very surprised to see what she believed her relatives standing outside instead of being gathered around the deathbed. From a tree in the courtyard hung a rope, like a seesaw. And ho! they sat her on it and began rocking her like mad! To and fro and to and fro, and the more she cried and begged and protested, the louder they laughed, the higher they swung her, and the ropes cut into her thighs and she cried and begged and to no avail, they just swung her and rocked her and laughed and laughed…

It so happened that after a while the muezzin was going to the minaret, and he passed by and heard the woman scream.
– Bism’Illah! – he cried out, and upon that of course the jinn vanished immediately. The woman fell to the ground, and the muezzin found her sobbing and with fright and pain. The woman, she told him what had happened.
– But why – asked the muezzin – did you not say ‘bism’Illah!’?
– Well, I thought they were my cousins! – said the woman.

Which shows a nice light upon the sort of family life you might expect in Nablus! You surely know that “bism’Illah” will immediately cause the disappearance of a jinn.

IFA 5636, told by Farraj Abed, recorded by Gavriella Rosental, Israeli Muslim.

The Gefilte Fish

In South Africa when Pesach comes and you want to make Gefilte Fish, you go to the supermarket, you buy the fish all ready minced and you buy a packet with the heads and bones so that you can make the jelly for the Gefilte Fish.

So our first Pesach here in Israel, I went to the supermarket to find that you can’t buy the fish like that. You buy the fish it’s alive. So I stood in the queue and I got when it was my chance and the man fished out a fish with a net and I said: – Yes, it’s the fish I want.
He hit it over the head and he wrapped it up in a parcel and he gave it to me. And we’re standing in the queue in the supermarket to get out and all of a sudden Jonathan says to me: – Mommy, the packet with the fish is moving.
I said to him:- Jonathan, don’t be silly, the man hit it over the head, it’s dead.

We get home. We unpack all the groceries. As we take the packet with the fish out, the packet flapped and the fish fell on the floor. You immediately jumped on the kitchen table screaming your head off. The fish was flapping on the floor. The dog was barking and Jonathan was chasing round and round trying to catch the fish. Now the fish was very slippery and each time he got hold of it, it slid out of his hands. After about twenty minutes he managed to catch the fish, took it to the bathroom. We put it in the bath. We filled the bath up with water and there was the fish swimming around the bath. I wasn’t prepared to kill it and neither was Jonathan and you were:- Don’t kill it mommy, don’t kill it mommy – and the dog was barking at it.

Anyway, I didn’t know what I was going to do with this fish. So, the only person I knew with any experience here in Israel was Brenda. So, I phoned up Brenda and I asked her what she thought I should do, and she suggested that I put the fish in a plastic packet and put it alive in the deep freeze and it would suffocate. And that’s exactly what I did. After about half an hour we opened up the deep freeze and the fish was… dead.

Then I had to of course clean it and take out the eyes and it was horrible. I spent about three hours cleaning it and cutting the pieces of fish away from the bone. I landed up with such a tiny little bowl of fish, not even enough to make one Gefilte Fish ball. So I threw it out and I never tried to make Gefilte Fish again.

IFA 21870, told by Eliza Berman, recorded by her daughter Lauren Berman, South Africa.

Mozart’s Music

When my husband found a job, they had lunch in the open air. So they were sitting in the sun, chewing on their sandwiches and listening to music, it was Mozart. The balabait (proprietor) came up to them and asked:- This is good music! Who is it?
He (the husband) says:- It is Mozart.
And he (the employer) says:- Ole hadash? Kama zman hu ba-aretz? (A new immigrant? How long has he been in Israel?)

IFA 22123, told by Anastasia T., recorded by Larisa Fialkova, Ukraine.