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
Is There Such a Thing as “Yiddish Architecture”?
The “spatial turn” in the humanities has opened up new kinds of thinking about Jews’ relationship to place. Yet how can this approach — which focuses on the physically concrete — be applied to the field of Yiddish studies, which after all is defined by the intangible factor of language?
Aug 10, 2015
Article
'Before the bow that was drawn': The Vilna Komitet and its documentation of the destruction of Polish Jewry, 1939–1940/41
A translation of the introduction of Miriam Schulz’s recent book, Der Beginn des Untergangs: Die Zerstörung der jüdischen Gemeinden in Polen und das Vermächtnis des Wilnaer Komitees (“Before the bow that was drawn”: The Vilna Komitet and its documentation of the destruction of Polish Jewry).
May 14, 2018
Review
Review of Yiddish Empire: The Vilna Troupe, Jewish Theater, and the Art of Itinerancy by Debra Caplan
In the brief decade of its existence, the Vilna Theater Troupe radically changed Yiddish theater, and the global stage.
Feb 06, 2019
Article
Split Identity: Jewish Scholarship in the Vilna Ghetto
In this essay, David Fishman draws a comparison between yidishe visnshaft, or Jewish studies scholarship, and Judenforschung, the Nazi field of antisemitic Jewish studies used to justify the persecution and extermination of Jews in scientific terms.
Jun 30, 2020