Reviews

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

Estraikh paints a vibrant picture of Yiddish socialism’s fluidity and its many tendencies as it responded to the tensions and traumas of the twentieth century.

Oct 12, 2021

Jeffrey Israel has written an ambitious, thought-provoking, and impressive book about political love and how it can be achieved through play.

Oct 08, 2021

Halff offers a specific and detailed critique of the translation, while also acknowledging that in this book, filled with Sutzkever’s metaphors, imagery, and motifs, “wonders await.”

Jun 23, 2021

Two new publications offer rich and engaging material for the further exploration of Jewish life in early modern Europe.

May 24, 2021

Shandler’s biography can be read as a chronicle of expanding notions of folkstimlekhkayt, from the old vos far a yid redt nisht ken yidish (what kind of [Ashkenazi] Jew doesn’t speak Yiddish) standard to the Yiddish being used and developed by cohorts of non-native speakers.

May 21, 2021

Review of Honey on the Page: A Treasury of Yiddish Children’s Literature, edited and translated by Miriam Udel.

May 19, 2021

German as a Jewish Language challenges the distinctions made between “Jewish” and “non-Jewish” languages and concurrently emphasizes the permeability between disciplinary boundaries.

May 18, 2021

The Rise and Fall makes strikingly clear claims about all that is wrong with the field, from its insiderism to its uncritical reliance on “culture” and “ethnicity.”

May 09, 2021

Jacobs (who, in addition to being a scholar of modern Hebrew literature, is also an accomplished translator and poet) offers a rethinking of the modern Hebrew canon as fundamentally shaped by what she calls a “translational poetics.”

May 03, 2021