Articles

Essays and peer-reviewed scholarship in Yiddish Studies, an interdisciplinary field that engages all aspects of Yiddish cultural production, especially in its relationship to other cultures and languages.

Click here for a separate listing of open-access, peer-reviewed articles.

Article

The Yiddish Columbus: Critical Counter-History and the Remapping of American Jewish Literature

Glantz’s mas­ter­work Kris­to­bal Kolon offers a transna­tion­al vision of the Amer­i­c­as that insists — in Yid­dish — on its Jew­ish, Mus­lim, indige­nous and African ori­gins, sug­gest­ing a new geog­ra­phy for Amer­i­can Jew­ish lit­er­a­ture that exceeds the bound­aries of what we under­stand the Amer­i­c­as and Jew­ish­ness to be, and chal­leng­ing our expec­ta­tions of what Yid­dish lit­er­a­ture can contain.

Review

Review of The Rise and Fall of Jewish American Literature by Benjamin Schreier

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.”

Review

Review of Jewish American Writing and World Literature: Maybe to Millions, Maybe to Nobody by Saul Noam Zaritt

Replete with insight­ful close read­ings of key his­tor­i­cal and lit­er­ary texts, Jew­ish Amer­i­can Writ­ing and World Lit­er­a­ture com­pli­cates the lim­it­ing bina­ry of the national/​transnational models.

Review

Transformation or Distortion? Anthologizing Yiddish in a Postvernacular Age

How Yid­dish Changed Amer­i­ca and Amer­i­ca Changed Yid­dish is a high­ly enjoy­able col­lec­tion assem­bled with undis­guised love for Yid­dish cul­ture, which at the same time reflects that culture’s remark­able vital­i­ty and variety.

Article

A Dance: Fradel Shtok Reconsidered

Gol­lance recon­sid­ers Fradel Shtok’s oeu­vre and lit­er­ary recep­tion in the con­text of her trans­la­tion of Shtok’s short sto­ry A tants” (A dance).

Review

Nothing Backwards about the Forward's New Anthology

The new anthol­o­gy of sto­ries pub­lished in The For­ward has more than a few gems, Eileen Pol­lack reviews. 

Article

Af der shvel un in der fremd: A feuilleton on Yiddish, Race, and the American Literary Imagination

Adam Zachary New­ton exam­ines the Amer­i­can Jew­ish lit­er­ary impulse to claim both white­ness and alien­ation while iden­ti­fy­ing with Black Americans. 

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