Blog

Essays, interviews, listicles, podcasts, and much more, covering all aspects of Yiddish culture.

Blog

Ain’t No Party Like a Shnorer Party: The Wild and Short Life of a Literary Support Group

The Shnor­er Asso­ci­a­tion, also some­times known as The Shnor­er Club, spon­sored a vari­ety of cul­tur­al events in New York City from 1915 through around 1925.

Blog

Briv funem arkhiv: A Long-Lost Letter from the Author’s Great-Grandfather to Moishe Nadir

A let­ter from a devot­ed read­er to Moyshe Nadir, detail­ing the per­son­al strug­gles and ide­o­log­i­cal mis­giv­ings of a dis­il­lu­sioned Communist.

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Feminism, Creativity and Translation: Chava Rosenfarb Translates Jewish-Canadian Women Writers into Yiddish

Goldie Mor­gen­taler reflects on why her moth­er, the nov­el­ist Cha­va Rosen­farb, might have cho­sen to trans­late the work of two oth­er Jew­ish Cana­di­an women writ­ers — her friends Miri­am Wadding­ton and Adele Wise­man, who both wrote in Eng­lish — into Yiddish.

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How to Suppress Yiddish Women’s Writing

Joan­na Russ’ 1983 schemat­ic of strate­gies and dynam­ics that sup­press wom­en’s writ­ing — along with some addi­tions spe­cif­ic to mod­ern Yid­dish cul­ture — helps explain both the his­tor­i­cal sup­pres­sion of Yid­dish women writ­ers and more recent chal­lenges to fem­i­nist schol­ar­ship on wom­en’s Yid­dish writ­ing. Faith Jones guides us to make the Yid­dish future togeth­er, and to make our place in it.

Blog

IkhOykh: Workplace Harassment and Yiddish Literature

Yid­dish lit­er­a­ture abounds with #MeToo moments — rep­re­sen­ta­tions of sex­u­al exploita­tion and mis­con­duct. If our list here, which is by no means com­plete or exhaus­tive, uncov­ered so many trou­bling scenes, how many more of these scenes unset­tle Yid­dish lit­er­a­ture as a whole? And what does the pro­lif­er­a­tion of such scenes tell us about the role these dynam­ics played in the lives of Yid­dish speak­ers –– what they expect­ed from, feared, or expe­ri­enced in the workplace?

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