Hannah Pollin-Galay is Associate Professor of Yiddish and Holocaust Studies in the Department of Literature at Tel Aviv University and author of Ecologies of Witnessing: Language, Place and Holocaust Testimony (Yale University Press, 2018) and Occupied Words: What the Holocaust Did to Yiddish (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024). She previously worked as a youth educator at Leyvik House, the Union for Yiddish Writers and Journalists in Israel. Her work has appeared in journals such as Prooftexts, Jewish Social Studies, and Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
CONTRIBUTOR
Hannah Pollin-Galay
Tel Aviv University
RELATED ARTICLES
Review
Review of As the Dust of the Earth: The Literature of Abandonment in Revolutionary Russia and Ukraine by Harriet Murav
Hannah Pollin-Galay
The sophisticated method, the humane subject matter, the bold interpretations and the careful historical research all make Dust of the Earth a potent model for contemporary scholarship—in Yiddish Studies and beyond. In a moment when an increasing number of people across the globe find themselves in a political and social state of hefkeris, up for grabs and abandoned by their allies and leaders, Murav shows us that literature offers one small, but powerful path back to humanity.
Oct 30, 2024
Texts & Translation
ממעמקים
From the Depths
Chava Rosenfarb
Translation by Hannah Pollin-Galay
A sonorous translation of a poem about the Lodz ghetto by Chava Rosenfarb.
Jun 07, 2022
Pedagogy
Teaching Race Through Yiddish Literature in Israel
Hannah Pollin-Galay
In this piece Hannah Pollin-Galay reflects on the possibilities and limitations of teaching race through Yiddish literature at an Israeli university.
Jun 25, 2021
Article
Orphaned Words: Yiddish, English, and Child Speech in Postwar Cinema
Hannah Pollin-Galay
Is there a Jewish way of not saying things? In facing crises in language during the immediate post-Holocaust years, filmmakers in English and Yiddish made choices about how to balance repair and critique.
Jun 30, 2020
Pedagogy
לויט די לערערס | Teachers Weigh In: Yiddish in Holocaust Courses?
Hannah Pollin-Galay
Instructors share their thoughts on teaching with Yiddish in Holocaust Studies contexts.
Apr 03, 2017
Pedagogy
Teaching Yiddish Through Performance
Hannah Pollin-Galay
After-school enrichment classes for children can be deadly to teach. Creative performance is one way to keep students engaged and learning.
Aug 13, 2015
Interview
Ironic Inversions: Rare Soviet Yiddish Songs of WWII
Hannah Pollin-Galay
At the international symposium “Global Yiddish Culture: 1938-1949,” singer-songwriter Psoy Korolenko and Professor Anna Shternshis brought to life lost Yiddish songs of the Holocaust in an all-new concert and lecture program.
Aug 12, 2015