Your Guide to Yiddish and In geveb at the 2019 AJS Conference
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Your Guide to Yiddish and In geveb at the 2019 AJS Conference

The Editors

Dec 04, 2019

It’s almost that time of year again, when scholars and students of Jewish Studies from around the United States and the world gather to learn about each others’ research, to develop friendships and discuss shared projects, and (we hope) to chit chat in person about all the exciting material they’ve been reading on In geveb. The Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) will be held in San Diego this year on December 15-17.

In geveb was launched at the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) conference in 2013, and we’ve been an enthusiastic presence at the conference ever since. The conference holds a special place in our hearts, and we hope to see you there.

For the past four years we have organized a round table each year approaching the question of “the state of Yiddish Studies” from different angles. These round tables have resulted in several series of essays, including on the state of Yiddish translation and teaching Yiddish in the digital age. We are continuing the tradition this year with a round table “Publish or Perish? Rethinking Academic Journals for Graduate Students and Contingent Scholars.” The issues we will be discussing at the round table are at the very core of our mission as an open access journal that supports and encourages the work of early career scholars and we are proud to share in a conversation that we hope will be provocative and productive.

Our round table is only one of many papers and panels related to Yiddish that will be taking place, and we’re pleased to offer, for the third year in a row, our guide to Yiddish at the conference (if you notice something we’re missing, please email us!) We’d like to acknowledge In geveb intern Jonah Lubin for his work in compiling this list. We hope that you will discover, as we have, that our field is varied and fresh, full of new ideas and enriched by scholars working in a variety of positions and disciplinary backgrounds. If you are one of the presenters included here, we hope you will consider submitting your work to In geveb for publication!

We also want to highlight the events In geveb has organized and is participating in, and to encourage you to use them as an opportunity to meet us. In geveb aims to be a resource for Yiddish Studies in the broadest sense, which means that if you work with Yiddish and we don’t know you yet, we want to. In geveb editors will be wearing buttons with our logo during the conference, so if you see someone sporting these stylish oysyes, consider it an invitation to come introduce yourself

<p>How to tell if you’re talk­ing with an edi­tor of <em>In geveb</em></p>

How to tell if you’re talk­ing with an edi­tor of In geveb

Where to Find In geveb at AJS

  • “Publish or Perish? Rethinking Academic Journals for Graduate Students and Contingent Scholars” Roundtable: (Monday 8:30-100:00am, Hilton Bayfront San Diego, Aqua 309): This roundtable brings together digital and print publishers of academic and academic-adjacent writing to think about ways that we do, can, might, and should incorporate graduate students, recent graduates, underemployed and contingent academic workers and those outside academia in the world of academic publishing. Given increased expectations that graduate students face about publishing before completing a PhD and while on the job market, and the significant challenges that increasing numbers of underemployed and contingent academics face in finding time, resources, and compensation for their scholarly work, we will consider the role and function of publishing in this changing professional and scholarly landscape. We will discuss the missions of our individual academic publishing ventures and how they are responding to continuing changes in our field as they relate specifically to providing opportunities for these populations.
  • In geveb “Kave-sho”: (Sunday, 10:30-11:30 at the Starbucks located in the Hilton Bayfront San Diego) If you’re a scholar who works with Yiddish, come join us for coffee before the AJS conference begins! This is a chance to meet other Yiddish-interested scholars and to chat with the editors of your favorite online journal of Yiddish studies. You can RSVP through the Facebook event or simply show up.
  • Say hello!: In geveb editors and editorial board members will be wearing pins with our logo during the conference. If you see someone wearing an In geveb pin, please introduce yourself!
  • On Twitter: As in past years, In geveb will be live tweeting the conference. Follow us at @ingeveb to get a glimpse of the Yiddish Studies learning we’re experiencing, even if you can’t make it to the conference.

Where to Find Yiddish at AJS

All of the following panels, roundtables, seminars, and lightning sessions promise to have at least one speaker whose presentation engages with Yiddish in a substantive way. We include the name of these presenters and their papers. In the case of roundtables and seminars, we have included the names of all participants. Follow the links to the conference schedule for more detail.

Sunday, December 15th

10:30-11:30am

10:30-12:30pm

12:30-2:00pm

4:15pm-4:45pm

  • Popular Yiddish Prose
    • Ellen Kellman, Chair
    • Rachel A. Wamsley, “But Whither the Peacock? The Wallich Manuscript and Itzik Manger’s Anthologism”
    • Itzik Gottesman, “Wolf Younin’s Yiddish Language and Folklore Column ‘SHPRAKHVINKL’”
    • David G. Roskies, “Shtetlspeak: The Triumph of the Dialogical in Zalman Schneour’s Shklov”

Monday, December 16th

8:30am-10:00am

  • Jews and their Ethnic Neighbors in 20th Century New York: Images and Attitudes
    • Melissa R. Klapper, Chair
    • Gil Rabak, “Ms. Fitzsimmons Sent Some Pork and Beans: The Representation of the Irish in Tashrak’s Works and the Shtetlization of New York City”
    • Ayelet Brinn, ““A Romance of New York”: Abraham Cahan’s Encounters with Non-Jewish Immigrants”
    • Samuel Spinner, “From Image to Word: Primitivist Visuality in Der Nister’s Stories”
    • Melissa R. Klapper, Respondent
  • Translation and Innovation in Yiddish
    • Joanna Mazurkiewicz Meisarosh, Chair
    • Joshua Price, “ ‘GANEYVISHE SHPRAKHE VI TATE-MAMES LOSHN’: On the Yiddish Translation of Eugѐne Sue’s LES MYSTÈRES DE PARIS”
    • Ellen Kellman, “KUMEN TSUM SEYKHL (Seeing the Light): Abraham Cahan’s First Novella (1894)”
    • Meyer Weinshel, “DOS ANDERE DAYTSHLAND: German Literature, Yiddish Translation, and Multilingualism in and beyond the Habsburg Empire”
  • Tradition and Crisis Reconsidered
    • Gershon D. Hundert, Chair
    • Andrea Schatz, “News in Exile: The Historical Library of Eighteenth-Century European Jews”
    • Israel Bartal, Respondent

10:30am-12:00pm

  • Variation, contact, and ideology in Jewish languages
    • Benjamin H. Hary, Chair
    • Renee Perelmutter, “Code-switching and the humorous frame in Soviet and post-Soviet Russian Jewish discourse”
    • Steffen Krogh, “Recent German Features in Haredi Satmar Yiddish”
    • Ofra Tirosh-Becker, “Reflection of Language Contact in Jewish North African Journalism”
  • Sidestepping the Language War: New Directions in Hebrew-Yiddish Historiography
    • Sunny S. Yudkoff, Chair
    • Yaakov Herskovitz, “Before the Beginning – Language Education and the Vernacular in Opatoshu and Brenner”
    • Roni Masel, “Between Lamentation and Indictment: The Yiddish Translations of Bialik’s Poem ‘In the City of Slaughter’ ”
    • Shachar M. Pinsker, “ ‘Yiddish Doesn’t Need Mercy’: Hebrew-Yiddish Bilingualism in Israel”
    • Anita Norich, Respondent

1:30pm-3:00pm

3:30pm-5:00pm

  • Graduate Student Lightning Session: Gender and Sexuality
    • Kate Rosenblatt, Chair
    • Tova Markenson, “Embodied (Mis)perceptions: Shoulder-to-Shoulder with Jewish Prostitutes at the Yiddish Theatre in Buenos Aires”
    • Keren R. McGinity, Respondent
    • Orit Avishai, Respondent
    • Hartley W. Lachter, Respondent
    • Jeffrey Spencer Shoulson, Respondent

5:15pm-6:45pm

  • Post War Communist Jewish Writing
    • Howard N. Lupovitch, Chair
    • Marat Grinberg, “The Soviet Critiques of Jewish Lives and Religion: Censorship and Subversion in Soviet Judaica Scholarship.”
    Reception and American Jewish Literature
    • Anita Norich, Chair
    • Benjamin J. Schreier, Discussant
    • Omri Asscher, Discussant
    • Rachel Gordan, Discussant
    • Samantha Pickette, Discussant
    • Markus Krah, Discussant
    • Joshua Lambert, Discussant
    Interwar Polish Jewry: Beyond Political History
    • Sarah Ellen Zarrow, Chair
    • Renata Dorota Piatkowska, “Jewish Visual Culture in the Second Polish Republic”
    • Mariusz Kalczewiak, “The World Is Big and Full of Illusions. Perets Hirshbeyn, Travel Writing, and Global Yiddish Culture”
    German-Jewish Texts and Contexts
    • Samuel Spinner, Chair
    • Aye Elyada, “Rethinking the Yiddish-German Encounter: Diachronic Translation and the Place of Old Yiddish Texts in Modern German-Jewish Culture”
    • Samuel Spinner, Respondent

Tuesday December, 17th

8:30am-10:00am

  • Holocaust Memory and Migration
    • Jonathan Skolnik, Chair
    • Hazel Frankel, “Forest and Veld: Lost Voices and Transnational Memory: Three Lithuanian-South African Yiddish Poets, Sarah Aisen, Chaya Fedler and Leya Benson-Rink”
    Borscht Airs: Situating Mickey Katz in American Jewish Musical Comedy
    • Mark Loren Kligman, Chair
    • Samantha Madison Cooper, “From “Sadie Salome” to “Barber of Schlemiel”: Tracing the Roots of Mickey Katz’s Incongruous Operatic Parodies”
    • Uri Schreter, “Mish Mash: Mickey Katz and the Afterlife of Klezmer”
    • Ezekiel LEvine, “Lil Dicky Katz: The Evolution of Jewish-American Comedic Music”

10:15am-11:45am

Gender and Genre: Shifts in American Jewish Culture

    • Jennifer Caplan, Chair
    • Jeremiah Lockwood, “Revivalism against the limits of historical memory: Judith Berkson reimagines the female cantorial voice”
    • Anna Elena Torres, “Mutual Aid Among Ourselves”: Kinship and Comradeship in Anarchist Discourse”

Graduate Student Lightning Session: Modern Jewish History

    • Laurel Leff, Chair
    • Beata Szymkow, “Anti-Jewish Violence and the Emergence of the Polish State: Lwów 1918”
    • Matthew Harris Brittingham, “Yiddish Journalists and Spiritualism in North America: A Lived Religions Approach to Jews and Contact with the Dead”
    • Ari Joskowicz, Respondent
    • Mir Yafitz, Respondent
    • Tony E. Michels, Respondent
    • Jessica Cooperman, Respondent

10:50am-11:45am

  • VISNSHAFT AF YIDDISH: Science in Translation
    • Jessica Anne Kirzane, Chair
    • Samuel Spinner, “Fishl Schneersohn’s MENTSH-VISNSHAFT: Science or Literature?”
    • Dory Amalia Fox, “I.J. Singer’s FAMILY CARNOVSKY and the Crisis of Jewish Visual Typology”
    • Tova Pearl Benjamin, “LEBN UN VISNSHAFT: Science and Socialism among Russian Jews”
    • Naomi Sheindel Seidman, “In the YIVO Laboratory”

1:30pm-3:00pm

  • Jews, Gender, and the State
    • Anna Rachel Igra, Chair
    • Mir Yarfitz, “Strange Alliances: Commercial Sex, Policing, and the Negotiation of Argentine Jewish Identity”
    The Yiddish Primary Source: Reappraisals and New Directions
    • Joanna Mazurkiewicz Meisarosh, Chair
    • Zackary Berger, “Chasidic Poetry In A Journal of Prose: Der Veker’s Verse”
    • Sandra Nora Chiritescu, “Mining the Yiddish Archive in Jewish Lesbian Second-Wave Femnist Publishing”
    • Sean Sidky, “GOT, MAYN BRUDER: Glatshteyn’s Holocaust Theologies”

3:15pm-4:45pm

AJS
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State of the Field
yiddish studies
In geveb updates
MLA STYLE
Editors, The. “Your Guide to Yiddish and In geveb at the 2019 AJS Conference.” In geveb, December 2019: https://ingeveb.org/blog/your-guide-to-yiddish-and-in-geveb-at-the-2018-ajs-conference-1.
CHICAGO STYLE
Editors, The. “Your Guide to Yiddish and In geveb at the 2019 AJS Conference.” In geveb (December 2019): Accessed Jan 20, 2025.

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