“Memoir”
Review
Activism Despite Chaos: A review of Eli Gumener‘s A Ukrainian Chapter: A Jewish Aid Worker’s Memoir of Sorrow (Podolia, 1918–20)
Vladyslava Moskalets
Mar 08, 2026
Review
A Mosaic of Memory: Levi Shalit and the Twilight of Shavl Jewry (Review of So We Died: A Memoir of Life and Death in the Ghetto of Šiauliai, Lithuania)
Simon Goldberg
May 07, 2025
Review
Review of Once There Was Warsaw by Ber Kutsher, transl. Gerald Marcus
Alison B. Curry
Kutsher’s memoir is not just a memoir of his life but a memoir of a city long gone. Written originally in Yiddish in 1955 after Kutsher survived the Holocaust and left Poland, it reads more like a yizkor book than a personal memoir.
Jan 13, 2025
Texts & Translation
הירשקע גליק
Hirshke Glik
Shmerke Kaczerginski
Translation by Lillian Leavitt
An excerpt from Kaczerginski's memoir on the origins of the Partisan Hymn.
Jan 26, 2024
Texts & Translation
„מײַן טאַטע פֿאַרברענט מײַנע לידער“ און „דער שרײַבער־באַל...“
"My Father Burns My Poems" and "The Writer's Ball"
Malka Lee
Translation by Faith Jones, Anita Norich and David Mazower
Translations of excerpts from Malka Lee's memoir, Durkh kindershe oygn.
Dec 07, 2023
Pedagogy
Reconstructing the Bibliography of a "Master Criminal"
Jonah Lubin
Despite the popularity of Urke Nachalnik's writings in interwar Poland, bibliographic resources on the figure have been scant, until now.
Apr 17, 2023
Interview
Jewish Autobiographies in Polish Translation: An Interview with Joanna Degler
Agnieszka Ilwicka and Joanna Degler
A interview discussing a project to publish critical editions, in Polish, of 25 of the most important memoirs culled from a larger collection of historical Polish Jewish memoirs and autobiographical sources.
Jan 31, 2023
Texts & Translation
ספּינאָזאַ
Spinoza
Melekh Ravitsh
Translation by Lazer Lederhendler
An excerpt from Melekh Ravitsh's memoirs on the Yiddish writer's encounter with Spinoza's Ethics.
Feb 17, 2022
Texts & Translation
די שלאַנג
The Snake
Yitzkhok Horowitz
Translation by Ollie Elkus
An excerpt from Yitzkhok Horowitz's Mayn Tatns Kretshme
Dec 09, 2021
Texts & Translation
באַגעגעניש מיט מרדכי געבירטיג
At Home with Mordecai Gebirtig
Rachmil Bryks
Translation by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub
An extract from Rachmil Bryks' memoir The Fugitives (New York, 1975)
Apr 15, 2020
Texts & Translation
אױסלאַנד: מײַנע באַגעגענישן
Abroad: My Encounters
A. Mokdoni
Translation by Hayyim Rothman
Extract from Mokdoni's memoir recounting his memories of Rabbi Yaakov Meir Zalkind.
May 06, 2019
Texts & Translation
שאַך־מאַט
Checkmate
Mordkhe Wolfshaut-Dinkes
Translation by Jonah S. Boyarin
An extract from Mordkhe Wolfshaut-Dinkes's holocaust memoir.
Mar 04, 2019
Review
“The Worst Good Idea Ever”? The Birobidzhan Project and Soviet Jewish Culture
Natalie Belsky
Masha Gessen's new book explores the history of the Jewish Autonomous Region of Birobidzhan through the story of David Bergelson and Simon Dubnow, whose thought and writing influenced its development.
Jun 26, 2017
Texts & Translation
מײַן שטעטל קאָצק
Kock, My Town
Motl Siemiatycki
Translation by Helen Mintz
Motl Siemiatycki's Memoirs from the Kock Yizkor book.
Jun 01, 2017
Texts & Translation
די ייִדיש־אַנאַרכיסטישע באַוועגונג אין אַמעריקע
The Jewish Anarchist Movement in America
Joseph Cohen
Translation by Emil Kerenji
This chapter from Joseph Cohen's memoir offers a rare glimpse into the American Jewish Anarchist circles of the early twentieth century.
Sep 29, 2015