You’ve prob­a­bly heard of Sher­lock Holmes, but have you ever heard of ​“the Yid­dish Sher­lock Holmes”? In The Adven­tures of Max Spitzkopf: The Yid­dish Sher­lock Holmes, new­ly trans­lat­ed by Mikhl Yashin­sky, read­ers meet a bril­liant detec­tive whose escapades once thrilled Yid­dish audi­ences across Europe. These fast-paced, inex­pen­sive thrillers, sold indi­vid­u­al­ly for a few pen­nies, fol­low the exploits of Max Spitzkopf, a Vien­na-based pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor whose dar­ing intel­lect and Jew­ish pride made him a folk hero to his readers.

Like his British coun­ter­part Sher­lock Holmes, Spitzkopf con­stant­ly out­wits crim­i­nals and bum­bling provin­cial police as he inves­ti­gates all man­ners of crimes, includ­ing mur­ders, fraud, and child smug­gling — some­times all in the same sto­ry. Dash­ing and brave, with inge­nious meth­ods of detec­tion, he is nev­er afraid to go under­cov­er or take on the most vio­lent crim­i­nals. Yet, as Yashinsky’s help­ful intro­duc­tion notes, there is one cru­cial dif­fer­ence between Spitzkopf and Holmes: as the back cov­er of each Yid­dish edi­tion pro­claimed, Spitzkopf ​“is a JEW — and he has always tak­en every oppor­tu­ni­ty to stand up FOR JEWS.”

Not every case deals direct­ly with anti­semitism, but many do, includ­ing ​“Kid­napped for Con­ver­sion,” in which a young Jew­ish woman is abduct­ed by a local priest who intends to con­vert her to Chris­tian­i­ty, and ​“The Blood Libel,” in which a greedy woman mur­ders her niece and, with the help of her lover (also the local priest) plots to frame the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty for a rit­u­al killing. Such sto­ries tapped into the ris­ing tide of anti-Jew­ish vio­lence sweep­ing Europe, mak­ing Spitzkopf not just a detec­tive, but a hero to the Jews who devoured his stories.

Jonas Krep­pel, the mind behind Spitzkopf, was him­self a fig­ure of remark­able accom­plish­ment and trag­ic fate. Born in 1874, Krep­pel was a pro­lif­ic writer, jour­nal­ist, and com­mu­ni­ty leader, the author of numer­ous works of Jew­ish schol­ar­ship and pop­u­lar lit­er­a­ture. His career flour­ished in Vien­na, where he bal­anced intel­lec­tu­al pur­suits with a keen sense of pop­u­lar taste, an unusu­al and impres­sive com­bi­na­tion. But Kreppel’s life end­ed in hor­ror: incar­cer­at­ed by the Nazis in 1938 dur­ing a round-up of Jew­ish intel­li­gentsia, he was killed in Buchen­wald in 1940. That the man who cre­at­ed this quick-wit­ted, proud­ly Jew­ish hero per­ished at Nazi hands lends the sto­ries a haunt­ing poignancy.

Today, the effect is bit­ter­sweet. Kreppel’s fic­tion cap­tures pre­war Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties where Jews served as vital, vis­i­ble par­tic­i­pants in civic life, even as con­tem­po­rary read­ers can­not help but read for­ward, know­ing what would soon befall those very com­mu­ni­ties. The first sto­ry, for instance, is par­tial­ly set in Oświęcim, Poland, the town that would lat­er be demol­ished to make way for Auschwitz-Birke­nau. In bring­ing these tales back to light, Yashin­sky offers more than a live­ly trans­la­tion; he restores to read­ers a vivid, defi­ant chap­ter of Jew­ish pop­u­lar imag­i­na­tion — one where a Jew­ish hero always had the last word.