“Soviet Yiddish”

An unflinching account of a woman who lived a passionate and committed life at a time of enormous destruction and chaos.

May 27, 2026

Socialist Yiddishlands sets the stage for what could be a shift in how scholars think about the relationships among Yiddish, the Cold War, the effects of the Cold War on Jews around the world, the Soviet Bloc countries, and the lived realities of those who actively participated in the development of state socialism.

Jan 05, 2026

This essay about Yiddish-speaking artist Nathan Altman, written in French by Dr. Pascale Samuel, is from the catalogue accompanying the exhibition “The Dybbuk: Phantom of a Lost World,” on view at Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme [Museum of the Art and History of Judaism] (mahJ) in Paris through January 26, 2025. 

Dec 05, 2024

There is a lot that Yevgeniy Fiks wants us to unforget.

Oct 18, 2024

In this recently-published study, Senderovich challenges this fixed notion of the Soviet Jew, and recounts a complex prehistory of the Soviet Jew in the immediate context of interwar Soviet culture.

Feb 27, 2023

A melodramatic studio photograph illustrates the widening gap between the American and Soviet branches of the author's family.

Jan 18, 2023

This article looks at the wartime artistic and journalistic output of Dovid Bergelson and Dovid Hofshteyn to see how these writers appropriated Soviet terminology to paint Soviet Jews as the elder brothers in a worldwide Jewish family.

Nov 01, 2022

In its multilingualism and multivocality, this workshop on Cold War Yiddish was an anti-eulogy that spoke to afterlives instead of endings.

Mar 29, 2022

With this monumental study, Harriet Murav provides the first comprehensive literary biography of Bergelson and a rich intercultural contextualization of the Yiddish writer’s work

Dec 08, 2021

Eli Rosenblatt introduces three poems by African American women poets of the Harlem Renaissance, translated into Yiddish by Robert Magidoff for the 1936 anthology Neger-Dikhtung in America (Negro-Poetry in America), published in Moscow.

Jun 25, 2021

Krutikov’s philological skillset and meticulous archival research shine throughout this book, a landmark study of both Der Nister and Yiddish literature under Stalin.

Jan 12, 2021

Jun 24, 2019

Lipsker reviews Yevgeniy Fiks's exhibition Himl un Erd, a project that boldly probes the connections between Russian-Jewish history and the Soviet space-exploration projects. 

Dec 14, 2018

Mayhill Fowler's book shines light on the blind spots of national cultural histories of turn of the century Ukraine, following the often uneasy interface between authorities and art institutions.

Mar 26, 2018

In time for the one hundredth anniversary of the October revolution, Dovid Bergelson's novel Mides-hadin is out in a new translation by Harriet Murav and Sasha Senderovich. 

Nov 07, 2017

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

Joseph Heller reflects on oppression, solidarity, mutual prejudice, and Yevgeniy Fiks' new book. 

Apr 05, 2017

Anna Elena Torres talks with Yevgeniy Fiks about Internationalism, queer politics, utopias and imaginary mapping, and Soviet Yiddish.

Apr 05, 2017

The longtime editor of the Yiddish Forverts and author of fourteen books spoke with Sarah Ponichtera about growing up in Soviet Moldavia, being an immigrant, and reading. 

Mar 06, 2017

Gennady Estraikh speaks with Managing Editor Sarah Ellen Zarrow about the groundbreaking project “A Comprehensive History of the Jews of the Soviet Union,” a seven-year initiative led by researchers in NYU’s Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies.

May 26, 2016

New translations of four sections from Markish's book-length modernist poem. 

May 18, 2016

Listen to a contemporary rethinking of Birobidzhan, the longed-for but mostly imaginary Jewish territorial project.

Oct 18, 2015

How to make sense of a family saga that charts the very creation of the Soviet Jew: begin by making a family tree.

Oct 13, 2015

"Ach, the things a poor tailor has lived to see! We live in times when the coats go around making themselves." A review of a recent translation of Kulbak's Zelmenyaner.

Oct 11, 2015

Mides hadin (1929) is one of David Bergelson’s most innovative and experimental works. An aura of mystery infuses the opening chapter: three riders go out on an evening patrol that seems more like dream than reality.

Aug 14, 2015

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