Reviews

A valu­able fea­ture of Avreml Broide is the chance it offers to take a deep dive into the world of twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry rad­i­cal left activism to under­stand essen­tials of the CPUSA as an Amer­i­can subculture.

Nov 20, 2024

The con­sid­er­able achieve­ments of this book include its wide rang­ing sur­vey of the rela­tion­ship between Freud and Judaism, as well as Freud and Jew­ish lan­guages, and its detailed acquain­tance with the sec­ondary lit­er­a­ture that address­es this con­nec­tion. The work brims with ref­er­ences to fig­ures of impor­tance to Jew­ish cul­ture his­to­ry that might have been con­sid­ered sec­ondary, but high­light­ed in this con­text by their rela­tion­ship to Freud, as if illu­mi­nat­ed by a dif­fer­ent light or from the side, they emerge more ful­ly, in a Freudi­an dimension.

Nov 13, 2024

The sophis­ti­cat­ed method, the humane sub­ject mat­ter, the bold inter­pre­ta­tions and the care­ful his­tor­i­cal research all make Dust of the Earth a potent mod­el for con­tem­po­rary schol­ar­ship — in Yid­dish Stud­ies and beyond. In a moment when an increas­ing num­ber of peo­ple across the globe find them­selves in a polit­i­cal and social state of hefk­eris, up for grabs and aban­doned by their allies and lead­ers, Murav shows us that lit­er­a­ture offers one small, but pow­er­ful path back to humanity.

Oct 30, 2024

Dyn­ner frames The Light of Learn­ing​’s sweep­ing his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tive with a cru­cial the­o­ret­i­cal inter­ven­tion. To think about inter­war Pol­ish Hasidism is also to think about the ongo­ing con­struc­tion of mod­ern Jew­ish iden­ti­ty, and the fraught inter­sec­tions of eman­ci­pa­tion, accul­tur­a­tion, assim­i­la­tion, and colonization.

Oct 14, 2024

Oct 10, 2024

Mer­le L. Bachman’s new trans­la­tion of a selec­tion of Nevadovska’s poems, most­ly from Lid­er Mayne, pub­lished by Ben Yehu­da Press, is an event to celebrate.

Oct 09, 2024

Seam­less­ly inte­grat­ing his­tor­i­cal analy­sis and con­tex­tu­al explo­ration of the ​“Red Jews” motif with inves­ti­ga­tions into counter-his­to­ries, this work delves into lit­er­ary motifs and soci­etal dynamics.

Jul 12, 2024

These three wriers with lives unfold­ing in three dif­fer­ent local­i­ties — Tsarist Rus­sia, Poland, and the US — wrote plays that grap­ple with issues —such as the trag­ic fate of the agune (“chained wife”), moth­er­hood, self-real­iza­tion, sex work, finan­cial inde­pen­dence, and repro­duc­tive auton­o­my— that unfor­tu­nate­ly are still urgent a cen­tu­ry later.

Jul 09, 2024

This is a water­shed entry into the Eng­lish canon of Holo­caust testimony.

Jun 06, 2024

How do moments of rup­ture shape the prac­tices of insti­tu­tions devot­ed to Jew­ish history? 

Jun 03, 2024