[6] Menahem-Mendl is "arguably the most famous representation of the Luftmentsh, "man of the air", a Yiddish economic metaphor for Jewish poverty: petty traders, peddlers, various paupers, i.e., people with no definite occupation.
[7] In his quest to fortune Menahem-Mendl fails in all his endeavors: as a currency and stock speculator, as a shadkhn (marriage broker), as writer, and as an insurance agent.
Halkin suggests that this statement is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the writer himself, who indeed was engaged in stock speculations, among other occupations, and traveled a lot, although the stories are in no way autobiographical.
[6] In 1925, a silent film Jewish Luck (Russian: Еврейское счастье) was released in the Soviet Union directed by Alexey Granovsky, starring Solomon Mikhoels as Mehahem-Mendl.
[1] The Menahem-Mendl adventures were dramatized by the Moscow State Yiddish Theater as the last Soviet stage production by Granovsky, Luftmentshn (see wikt:luftmensch) in 1928.