Reviews

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

This collection of translated stories presents a new side of David Bergelson to German readers.

May 20, 2024