Reviews

Polacos in Argentina provides a multifaceted perspective on the hybridized identities that transformed Polish Jews into Argentinian Jews and eventually into Jewish Argentines.

Jan 31, 2022

Despite the shifting status and popularity of this Ashkenazi instrumental music and its musicians, Joel Rubin is, surprisingly, the first researcher to devote serious and sustained attention to one of its most important and productive periods: New York in the 1920s, and in particular the remarkable—and nowadays canonical—recordings of its two best-known and most influential figures, Dave Tarras (1895/7-1989) and Naftule Brandwein (1884-1963).

Jan 26, 2022

Through her work, Gross seeks to validate practices that meaningfully contribute to Jewish identity formation and connect Jewish Americans to their history as a people and to the contemporary community of Jewish people.

Jan 24, 2022

Tracing the existence of mixed-sex dancing is not only about witnessing changing ideas of sexuality but how Jews addressed the radical transformations arising from modernity.

Jan 19, 2022

With this monumental study, Harriet Murav provides the first comprehensive literary biography of Bergelson and a rich intercultural contextualization of the Yiddish writer’s work

Dec 08, 2021

Moyshe Kulbak’s Childe Harold of Dysna—a novel in verse that is inspired by Lord Byron and dramatizes the character of the Jewish flaneur—charms, delights, and brings a gentle sorrow.

Oct 31, 2021

In Golan Y. Moskowitz’s engrossing Wild Visionary: Maurice Sendak in Queer Jewish Context, he tells of the fantasy worlds that the beloved children’s book writer and illustrator created over his lifetime, initially as a form of self-preservation, a way of surviving a world hostile to overt displays of queerness and Jewishness, and eventually — and rebelliously — as a form of pleasure and self-expression.

Oct 24, 2021

Oct 21, 2021

Rojanski’s work provides a comprehensive picture of the events and personalities that chart the history of Yiddish in Israel.

Oct 20, 2021

Ayala Fader’s new book analyzes the double lives of hidden heretics — and how they are forced into such a bifurcated existence. It’s hard for a Yiddishist to maintain a neutral distance from Hidden Heretics, which is devoted to Hasidim who have almost gone completely off the religious path, but still stay inside their communities, leading double or multiple lives.

Oct 17, 2021