Special Issue

Old Yiddish Literature

Historical and Cultural Perspectives

Introduction

Article

Old Yiddish Literature: Historical and Cultural Perspectives: A Special Issue of In geveb

Aya Elyada and Matthew Johnson

The introduction previews how contributions expand our knowledge of Old Yiddish literature, while also shedding light on the study of popular culture, intercultural exchange, and gender.

Articles

Article

A German Tune, A Hebrew Script: A Yiddish Translation of Lutheran Liturgy

Roni Cohen

A Yiddish translation of a Protestant morning hymn reveals interreligious and intercultural exchange of religious poetry and music.

Article

The Catalog of Thirty-One Kings: Thoughts in the Twenty-First Century on Old Yiddish Epic

Oren Cohen Roman

Focusing on a retelling of Joshua 12:7–24, this study demonstrates the role of the epic in the representation of biblical themes in Old Yiddish literature.

Article

Women Wrote: Glikl in Context

Rachel L. Greenblatt

Placing Glikl’s writing alongside writings by other contemporary women in central Europe reveals what characterized their shared literary and cultural context.

Article

The Writing Werewolf: Rabbinic Identity and Linguistic Understanding in the Old Yiddish Mayse-bukh (Book of Stories, 1602)

Annegret Oehme

Language politics are embodied by a rabbi-turned-werewolf in a mayse from one of the most influential and popular early modern Yiddish books.

Article

The Dangers of Being without a Frame (Con licenza de Superiori)

Claudia Rosenzweig

By presenting rewritten Hebrew fables without an authorial frame-story, the Kü-bukh presents morals that are the very opposite of what could be expected.

Essays

Review

Review of Rebekka Voß’s Sons of Saviors: The Red Jews in Yiddish Culture

Renate Evers

Seamlessly integrating historical analysis and contextual exploration of the “Red Jews” motif with investigations into counter-histories, this work delves into literary motifs and societal dynamics.

Article

On Editing the Old Yiddish Arthurian Romance Viduvilt

Astrid Lembke, Tatjana Meisler and Ina Spetzke

A report on the process of creating a scholarly edition of the Old Yiddish Arthurian romance Viduvilt.

Blog

The Paratexts of Para-Liturgy: A Selection of Found Tkhine Poems

Dalia Wolfson

Through translation and creative writing - in the form of found poems - Dalia Wolfson explores the experiences of the women reciting tkhines in the Early Modern period.

Interview

Old Yiddish Scholarship in the Past, Present, and Future: An Interview with Chava Turniansky

Chava Turniansky and Aya Elyada

Aya Elyada interviews Chava Turniansky and discusses her career, her research, and the state of the field of Old Yiddish language and literature.