Zackary Sholem Berger writes and translates in Yiddish, Hebrew, and English. He was a Yiddish Book Center Translation Fellow in 2013 and has published four collections of original poetry—Not in the Same Breath (Yiddish House, 2011), One Nation Taken Out of Another (Apprentice House, 2014), All the Holes Line Up (Ben Yehuda Press, 2019), and Vi Lebt Zikh Dortn (self-published, 2019). His translation of Avrom Sutzkever's prose poetry, Essential Prose, was published in 2020 by White Goat Press, and his illustrated bilingual edition of Sutzkever's Ode to the Dove was published in 2023 by Ben Yehuda Press. His best known Yiddish literary work is likely his translation of Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat (Di Kats der Payats, 2003). A mild-mannered physician by day, he lives with his Yiddish-speaking family in Baltimore, Maryland.
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Zackary Sholem Berger
RELATED ARTICLES
Blog
Yiddish Studies - Present and Future: A Conference Marking the 15th Yortsayt of Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter (z’’l)
Zackary Sholem Berger
Yiddish Studies - Present and Future: A conference marking the 15th yortsayt of Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter (z’’l) included discussion and debate.
Mar 03, 2023
Texts & Translation
Erasing the Written, Rewriting the Erased: A Fragmented and Imperfect Tribute to Vogel
Zackary Sholem Berger
Zackary Sholem Berger renders two poems by Vogel anew via the poetic method of translation-erasure, revealing through distortion the contours that lead from language to language across the decades.
Oct 26, 2021
Review
Not Entirely Off the Derech: A Review of Ayala Fader’s Hidden Heretics
Zackary Sholem Berger
Ayala Fader’s new book analyzes the double lives of hidden heretics — and how they are forced into such a bifurcated existence. It’s hard for a Yiddishist to maintain a neutral distance from Hidden Heretics, which is devoted to Hasidim who have almost gone completely off the religious path, but still stay inside their communities, leading double or multiple lives.
Oct 17, 2021
Blog
Voices from Black Lives Matter Protests: קולות פֿון בלעק לײַװס מעטער פּראָטעסטן
Zackary Sholem Berger, Sara Feldman and Anthony Russell
Bilingual reflections compiled by Zackary Sholem Berger and authored by Berger, Sara Feldman, and Anthony Russell, Jewish activists who took part in recent Black Lives Matter protests.
Jun 19, 2020
Texts & Translation
דרײַ לידער
Three Poems
Leyb Kvitko
Translation by Harriet Murav and Zackary Sholem Berger
Three poems by Leyb Kvitko from his 1919 collection, Trit.
Mar 05, 2020
Blog
An Idiosyncratic Round-Up of Yiddish Poetry in 2018
Zackary Sholem Berger
A list of all Yiddish books of poetry published in 2018, sorted alphabetically by the author’s last name, together with my individual idiosyncratic impressions about what this book tells us about Yiddish poetry today.
Jan 31, 2019
Blog
The Lonely Hero Needs Reanimating: Poems by Yisroel Nekrasov | רעאַנימאַטאָרן קענען אַלץ: לידער פֿון ישׂראל נעקראַסאָוו
Zackary Sholem Berger
A new book of contemporary Yiddish poetry from the Russian writer Yisroel Nekrasov considers murder, reanimation, the geography of time, and the long work of mourning.
Sep 22, 2016
Blog
Translation from Yiddish: Whys and Wherefores
Zackary Sholem Berger
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
Blog
The Virtuoso of Loneliness: A Brief Invitation to Leyeles
Zackary Sholem Berger
Hear the voice of Yiddish poet Aaron Glantz-Leyeles as he meditates on the loneliness of the Yiddish writer while still embracing the magic of the American landscape.
Oct 06, 2015
Texts & Translation
אַ לוויה אין רעגן
A Funeral in the Rain
Abraham Sutzkever
Translation by Zackary Sholem Berger
A prose poem from Abraham Sutzkever’s 1975 volume Green Aquarium. “A man with a heavy bag on his back approaches a dark city in a rainstorm...”
Aug 12, 2015