Mottke the Thief or Motke Thief () is a 1915 work by Sholem Asch, a picaresque novel about the exploits of the protagonist. The novel was first printed serialized in Forverts, in 1915,Sholem Ash, Motke ganev, Forverts, 9 January 1915, Forverts, 25 December 1915 published as a book by Forverts in 1916,Motke ganev, 1916, digitized in 2009 by the Digital Yiddish Library of the Yiddish Book Center and made into a play in 1917.Rob Kendt,Motke Thief, Variety, November 20, 2005
It is a "coming of age"-type story of Motke following him from poverty and neglect in a shtetl to the Jewish criminal underworld of Warsaw, "of brothels and murky cafes, prostitutes and gangsters, extortion and murder".Zehavit Stern, When Sholem Asch Met Tarantino: Motke ganev Comes to Tel Aviv, June 6, 2018 (retrieved October 1, 2026)
Translations and adaptations Translated as Mottke the Vagabond by Isaac Goldberg, 1917Mottke the Vagabond (Mottke Ganef) (readable online in Google Books) Translated as Mottke the Thief by Willa Muir and Edwin Muir, 1935 Translated as Motke Thief by Caraid O'Brien, 2005, republished in O'Brien's Underworld Trilogy of Sholem Asch's works, 2023Jonathan L. Green, Review of Underworld Trilogy (god of vengeance, Motke Thief, The Dead Man) by Sholem Asch, trans. Caraid O’Brien Adapted into the German opera Mottke der Dieb by Bernd Franke and libretto by , a 2017 play by and , Beit Lessin Theater, based on Motke Ganev.King of Dogs In 2018 the play was nominated in 10 categories for the Israel Theater Prizeההצגה "מלך הכלבים" מובילה במספר המועמדויות לפרס התיאטרון and won three of them: director of the year: Irad Rubinstain, most promising actor of the year: , stage design: .Maya Cohen, והזוכה הוא: "סוס אחד נכנס לבר", Israel Hayom, 25 May, 2018
See also Moshkeleh the Thief by Sholem Aleichem, another novel about Jewish underclass Notes
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