“American Yiddish Literature”
Blog
Review of Isaac Bashevis Singer's play "Enemies: A Love Story" at Lviv Theater
Vladyslava Moskalets
Bashevis Singer's play takes on new meaning and relevance for Ukrainian audiences.
Apr 08, 2024
Article
The Yiddish Columbus: Critical Counter-History and the Remapping of American Jewish Literature
Rachel Rubinstein
Glantz’s masterwork Kristobal Kolon offers a transnational vision of the Americas that insists—in Yiddish—on its Jewish, Muslim, indigenous and African origins, suggesting a new geography for American Jewish literature that exceeds the boundaries of what we understand the Americas and Jewishness to be, and challenging our expectations of what Yiddish literature can contain.
Nov 09, 2022
Pedagogy
Translating a Text on Racist Violence as a Yiddish Student
Giovanna Truong
As a final project in a course on "Reading Yiddish" at Yale University, Giovanna Truong took on the challenge of translating Aaron Meisel's "The Death of Ted Dennis."
Oct 19, 2022
Review
Review of The Rise and Fall of Jewish American Literature by Benjamin Schreier
Dean Franco
The Rise and Fall makes strikingly clear claims about all that is wrong with the field, from its insiderism to its uncritical reliance on “culture” and “ethnicity.”
May 09, 2021
Review
Review of Jewish American Writing and World Literature: Maybe to Millions, Maybe to Nobody by Saul Noam Zaritt
Danny Luzon
Replete with insightful close readings of key historical and literary texts, Jewish American Writing and World Literature complicates the limiting binary of the national/transnational models.
Mar 15, 2021
Review
Transformation or Distortion? Anthologizing Yiddish in a Postvernacular Age
Michael Boyden
How Yiddish Changed America and America Changed Yiddish is a highly enjoyable collection assembled with undisguised love for Yiddish culture, which at the same time reflects that culture’s remarkable vitality and variety.
Jan 12, 2021
Blog
Call for Submissions: American Racist Violence in the Early Twentieth Century
The Editors
Oct 06, 2020
Blog
Dora Schulner's Last Notebook
Nicholas Heskes
Heskes explores the contents of a slim, blue-leathered notebook he found in his parents' garage. The notebook belonged to his grandmother’s mother, the Yiddish writer Dora Schulner.
May 28, 2020
Texts & Translation
די באַלאַדע פֿון מײַן אומעט
My Tale of Woe
Moyshe-Leyb Halpern
Translation by Michael Shapiro
Moyshe-Leyb Halpern's morbid, postmodernist ballad in a new, creative translation by Michael Shapiro.
Nov 08, 2019
Review
Review of A Jewish Refugee in New York: Rivke Zilberg’s Journal by Kadya Molodovsky, Translated by Anita Norich
Rachel Rubinstein
Oct 06, 2019
Texts & Translation
אַ שאלה
A Problem
Joseph Opatoshu
Translation by Zeke Levine and Raphael Halff
Short story from Milgroym issue 6
Jul 01, 2019
Texts & Translation
אַ סוד
A Secret
Joseph Opatoshu
Translation by Daniel Kennedy
Short story from Milgroym issue 4
Jul 01, 2019
Texts & Translation
אַ שטיקעלע ברויט
A Crumb of Bread
David Edelstadt
Translation by Zachary Groz
A new translation of David Edelshtat's proletarian poem a shtikele broyt.
Apr 30, 2019
Texts & Translation
לעצטע מעשׂים־טובֿים פֿון אַ טאָמײטע
A Tomato's Last Good Deeds
Getsl Selikovitch
Translation by Michael Shapiro
If you thought Shloyme Gilbert's "Monologue of a Dog" was strange, wait until you read Getsl Selikovitsh's tomato monologue.
Nov 21, 2018
Review
Review of The Cambridge History of Jewish American Literature, edited by Hana Wirth-Nesher
Adriana X. Jacobs
Nov 18, 2018
Texts & Translation
צוויי לידער
Two Poems
Celia Dropkin
Translation by Shoshana Olidort
Two poems by Celia Dropkin
Oct 10, 2018
Texts & Translation
משיח אין אַמעריקע
Messiah in America
Moyshe Nadir
Translation by Michael Shapiro
An exclusive extract from Moyshe Nadir's 1932 satire, Messiah in America.
Jul 04, 2018
Article
A Dance: Fradel Shtok Reconsidered
Sonia Gollance
Gollance reconsiders Fradel Shtok’s oeuvre and literary reception in the context of her translation of Shtok's short story “A tants” (A dance).
Dec 03, 2017
Review
Nothing Backwards about the Forward's New Anthology
Eileen Pollack
The new anthology of stories published in The Forward has more than a few gems, Eileen Pollack reviews.
Nov 30, 2016
Article
Af der shvel un in der fremd: A feuilleton on Yiddish, Race, and the American Literary Imagination
Adam Zachary Newton
Adam Zachary Newton examines the American Jewish literary impulse to claim both whiteness and alienation while identifying with Black Americans.
Jun 21, 2016
Texts & Translation
סאַקאָ און וואַנזעטיס מאָנטיק
Sacco and Vanzetti’s Monday
Jacob Glatstein
Translation by Lawrence Rosenwald
A poem about Sacco and Vanzetti, originally published the day before their execution.
May 24, 2016
Blog
Second Avenue Meets Broadway: New York’s Yiddish Theater at MCNY
Saul Noam Zaritt
An interview with Stefanie Halpern, assistant curator of the current exhibition on New York’s Yiddish Theater at the Museum of the City of New York.
Mar 29, 2016
Texts & Translation
קיביאַ
Qibya
Jacob Glatstein
Translation by Adi Mahalel
A new translation of Jacob Glatstein's 1956 poem about the "Qibya affair."
Feb 21, 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
Article
Yiddish Literature in the American West
Caroline Luce
Was there a definable style of Yiddish writing produced in the American West? It is time to look beyond New York and examine the unique experiences of Jews on the Pacific Coast and the literary culture they produced.
Aug 26, 2015
Blog
What was the kultur-tuer?
Ross Perlin
A portrait of the kultur-tuer, Moyshe Shtarkman (1906-1975), the activist engaged in the day-to-day moments that materially and intellectually make Yiddish culture.
Aug 13, 2015
Review
Here Dwells the Jewish People
David G. Roskies
A review of Avraham Novershtern's new book on a century of American Yiddish literature. Our reviewer asks: was Yiddish literature in America a cultural enterprise that was doomed from the start or one that generated multiple beginnings?
Aug 12, 2015