Reviews

Through Homes of the Past, Shan­dler not only revis­its a neglect­ed episode in Jew­ish his­to­ry but also offers a pro­found med­i­ta­tion on the ways soci­eties pre­serve, con­struct, and rein­vent their pasts. His work will con­tribute to future dis­cus­sions on Jew­ish muse­ol­o­gy, his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry, and the evolv­ing iden­ti­ties of Yid­dish-speak­ing Amer­i­can Jewry.

Apr 14, 2025

Apr 10, 2025

“Jus­tice” – with all its trans­for­ma­tions and many faces – is a key notion for under­stand­ing Sovi­et his­to­ry. It was social jus­tice that the Bol­she­vik Rev­o­lu­tion was after. It was ​“the dream of social jus­tice” that attract­ed so many peo­ple, includ­ing numer­ous Jews, to join the rev­o­lu­tion or to immi­grate to Sovi­et Rus­sia. And the stronger the belief in social jus­tice the new order brought, the stronger was the shock caused by the injus­tice of the selec­tive enforce­ment of Sovi­et laws.

Apr 01, 2025

A pas­sion­ate social crit­i­cism can only be born from care for the soci­ety one crit­i­cizes and a deep famil­iar­i­ty with both its beau­ty and its flaws.

Mar 26, 2025

Mel Konner’s com­pelling trans­la­tion of Helfandn bay Nakht (1950) takes the read­er through Sutzkever’s Nesiye iber Afri­ka, evok­ing sto­ries of wise African kings, masked hunters, shape-shift­ing prey, lovers divid­ed by croc­o­dile rivers, and the cre­ation of man begin­ning with ele­phant tusks.

Mar 03, 2025

Paula Ansaldo’s book brings about a long-await­ed return of Yid­dish and the IFT to their right­ful place in Argen­tine the­ater his­to­ry and Jew­ish the­ater history.

Feb 26, 2025

There is a well-known Yid­dish proverb that argues Vert­er zol men vegn un nit tseyln (Words should be weighed and not count­ed). But when one pays atten­tion to the weight of words in the way Han­nah Pollin-Galay does, every word counts.

Feb 18, 2025

Instead of bring­ing Schulz to us… Under­hill engages in the far more labo­ri­ous, coura­geous, and grat­i­fy­ing task of bring­ing us to Schulz.

Feb 14, 2025

Kutsher’s mem­oir is not just a mem­oir of his life but a mem­oir of a city long gone. Writ­ten orig­i­nal­ly in Yid­dish in 1955 after Kut­sher sur­vived the Holo­caust and left Poland, it reads more like a yizkor book than a per­son­al memoir.

Jan 13, 2025

A Taytsh Man­i­festo offers fresh analy­sis of the trans­la­tion­al under­pin­nings of Yid­dish across diverse cul­tur­al con­texts. How­ev­er, I ques­tion the util­i­ty of propos­ing ​“taytsh” as a par­a­digm shift for a field — and wider Jew­ish world — that finds itself in a state of pro­found upheaval.

Jan 08, 2025