Blog

Zackary Sholem Berg­er reflects upon the round­table dis­cus­sion at AJS last Decem­ber that inspired this series, and on his own moti­va­tions as a trans­la­tor from Yid­dish and a writer in Eng­lish and Yiddish. 

May 08, 2016

Writ­ing Yid­dish poems and resist­ing assim­i­la­tion in the Dal­las Arbeter Ring 

Dec 13, 2017

May 27, 2019

An inter­view with Nao­mi Sei­d­man, Chan­cel­lor Jack­man Pro­fes­sor of the Human­i­ties at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, and Basya Schechter, musi­cian and founder of Pharoah’s Daugh­ter, who are work­ing on their com­pelling project called The Bais Yaakov project.

Jun 05, 2019

Eisen­berg reviews Shtoltse Lid­er, a mul­ti­me­dia stage show, with songs in Yid­dish and Eng­lish, and expla­na­tions and evo­ca­tions in Swedish, from Swedish duo Ida and Louise. 

Jun 25, 2019

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.

May 31, 2022

Faith Jones’ analy­sis of the strate­gies used to sup­press Yid­dish women’s writ­ing (based on Joan­na Russ’s 1983 essay) help us under­stand the ways that Tea Arciszewska’s male con­tem­po­raries all too often belit­tled and dis­missed her contributions.

Jun 02, 2022

A lyri­cal essay on rela­tion­ships between a trans­la­tor and pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions: Liba Augen­feld, a native Yid­dish speak­er who lived in Vil­na before the Holo­caust and could share lin­guis­tic and cul­tur­al knowl­edge she knew first hand, and the trans­la­tor’s own moth­er who had a con­flict­ed rela­tion­ship with Yiddish.

May 25, 2023

An inter­view with a pio­neer­ing Yid­dish fem­i­nist translator.

Jun 19, 2023

Yid­dish Book Cen­ter fel­lows Char­lotte Apter, Joseph Reis­berg, and Caleb Sher, togeth­er with bib­li­og­ra­ph­er David Mazow­er, unpacked a his­toric dona­tion of the 500 or so titles that made up Nor­ma Fain Pratt’s col­lec­tion of wom­en’s writ­ing in Yiddish.

Nov 12, 2023