The hit-or-miss-ness of most anthologies is one of the reasons why I usually read the stories we're going to discuss as close to the day of the meeting as possible; if I don't, I'm just not going to remember some of the misses at all!

Totally agree that the Yiddish voices are a delight! I thought your comment about how some of the stories reflect the formation of the State of Israel bringing Jews of disparate backgrounds together was insightful. I would love to read stories by non-Ashkenazi Jews and/or Jews of color. Maybe there are modern collections that are more inclusive in that way. One reason this volume was chosen is that we'd just read a couple of more recent anthologies, so going back to older works came from the desire to mix things up, though obviously it has pitfalls.