Jun 29, 2023
It’s been a busy publishing year for In geveb, with wonderful work by new and returning contributors on a wide variety of topics, from shund theater to art song, from long lost family photographs to student-produced artwork. As our publishing year comes to a close, we’re proud to share with you a roundup of the most widely-read pieces In geveb published this year. This is only a small sampling of the wide range of materials we’ve shared with you this year, and we hope you’ll keep exploring while we’re on our publishing break. In reverse order, here are your favorite pieces that we published in the past year (drumroll, please!):
AJS Conference Imagery: “Back Bay Bossa Nova,” Copyright © 2014 Paula Ogier.
10.
Your Guide to Yiddish and In geveb at the 2022 AJS Conference by The Editors
For those who attend the conference — and for those who don’t — this guide helps you stay abreast of what folks are working on in the academic field of Yiddish. Also, importantly, it lets you know where you can get coffee with fellow Yiddishy friends and say hello to us when you’re at AJS.
The first group of Yiddish students in Georgia, standing in front of the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU).
9.
Yiddish in Georgia by Sarah Biskowitz and Lasha Shakulashvili
Lasha Shakulashvili recently began teaching Yiddish at the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU). TSU is one of the first academic institutions in the region to give an official academic recognition to the Yiddish language and include it in the Jewish Studies curriculum along with Hebrew. Sarah Biskowitz spoke with Lasha to learn more about him and his work.
Photo of Sutzkever’s library card from his stay in Paris in 1947, courtesy of Maison de la culture yiddish – Bibliothèque Medem (Paris Yiddish Center – Medem Library).
8.
“Paris” by Abraham Sutzkever, translated by Annabel Cohen
Having found the previously rich Polish Jewish life decimated beyond repair, Abraham Sutzkever decided to emigrate to Palestine. Like many others, he stopped in Paris, where — as the poem describes — he also began to take stock of what he had lived through. Looking out over the “city of all peoples,” away from the epicenter of his own trauma, Abraham Sutzkever finds he is able to breathe again, to rediscover his connection to the world, to humanity, and to his Jewish identity.
Black and white photograph of a group of robots in top hats staring at the camera. In the foreground is a podium-like structure holding a wee bot.
7.
Onbotn fun robotn: Futured for Algorithmic Yiddishkayt by Alona Robach
For Purim, Alona Robach reported from a landmark conference advocating for robot Yiddishists: A group of forward-looking Yiddish scholars, barred from conference registration by discriminatory questions such as “Check this box to confirm you are not a robot,” have recently made their mark in a watershed virtual conference of their own. Di robotn celebrated the legacy of bots in the Yiddish corpus, dreaming of (electric sheep and) futures for robots in the Yiddishist world.
6.
YIVO Finds More Archival Documents in Biden Home by A. Reporter
We were honored to be the first to break this hard-hitting Purim news.
5.
Daughterhood by Helen Mintz
Helen Mintz’s essay is a beautiful reflection on translation, intergenerational continuities and discontinuities, loss and recovery, honoring the past and learning to live after it has passed.
4.
The Latest Yiddish Translations, 2022 by Dalia Wolfson
If you’re looking for the next Yiddish book to read in translation, or you just want to get a sense of the publishing landscape — across multiple languages — we have the resource for you!
In February 1931, Abraham Cahan published his two-part article “Jewish Immigrants and Their American Children,” criticizing the project of Yiddish education in America. He opened a debate in the Forverts on the purpose and merit of teaching Yiddish in American secular socialist schools.
3.
A Yiddish Newspaper at War with Yiddish: Abraham Cahan and the 1931 Language Debate in the New York Forverts by Gennady Estraikh
This peer-reviewed article must have struck a chord with our readers. It gets at the core of the historically fraught relationship between those working in Yiddish out of necessity and those advocating for the language as such. If you haven’t read it yet, check out this window into the history of Yiddishist education.
Cartoon by Alona Bach, courtesy of The Forward. The caption reads “The Golden Peacock and the White Goat meet a new friend”.
2.
The Golden Peacock and the Green Owl: Analyzing Yiddish Language Learners’ Experiences with Duolingo by Sarah Biskowitz
As Yiddish Duolingo approached its one-year anniversary, Sarah Biskowitz conducted a survey — with over three hundred respondents — to get a better picture of what our current moment of digital Yiddish learning looks and feels like to its participants. In this piece, she analyzes the data, which shows the rewards and limitations of consistent, active engagement with Yiddish Duolingo.
A special-baked challah takes center stage on the 1992 poster of the third Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow. Experience the 32nd iteration of the event between June 28th and July 2nd this year.
1.
Yiddish in ale lender: Yiddish Summer Programs Roundup 2023 by Alexander Stern
We’re thrilled that our readers continue to find this annual guide a helpful one-stop-shop for thinking through summer options. Did you find a good fit? Tell us about it when you get back from your summer learning!
