Reviews

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

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