“Vilna”

Sven-Erik Rose devotes tremendous care to the texts he studies, situating them in broader currents of modern European literature and zeroing in on the qualities that make them astonishing and worthy of a much wider readership than they have had. His book will undoubtedly be a boon to scholars and readers of all kinds, from experts in the field to those with little knowledge to teachers looking for ways of incorporating powerful, lesser-known Holocaust texts into their classes.

Apr 07, 2026

A new, dynamic translation of Abraham Sutzkever's poem about the burial and regeneration of "the Jewish word." 

Jan 06, 2025

A lyrical essay on relationships between a translator and previous generations: Liba Augenfeld, a native Yiddish speaker who lived in Vilna before the Holocaust and could share linguistic and cultural knowledge she knew first hand, and the translator's own mother who had a conflicted relationship with Yiddish.

May 25, 2023

Winokur’s letters offer a colorful snapshot of student life in Vilna between the world wars.

May 02, 2023

In this essay, David Fishman draws a comparison between yidishe visnshaft, or Jewish studies scholarship, and Judenforschung, the Nazi field of antisemitic Jewish studies used to justify the persecution and extermination of Jews in scientific terms.

Jun 30, 2020

Saulė Valiūnaitė offers a glimpse into the storied Velfke's restaurant, a gathering place for Yiddish writers, actors, and artists in interwar Vilne.

Jan 21, 2020

In the brief decade of its existence, the Vilna Theater Troupe radically changed Yiddish theater, and the global stage.

Feb 06, 2019

A bulletin produced by the Vilna Komitet in 1939, included in Miriam Schulz's recent book, Der Beginn des Untergangs: Die Zerstörung der jüdischen Gemeinden in Polen und das Vermächtnis des Wilnaer Komitees ("Before the bow that was drawn": The Vilna Komitet and its documentation of the destruction of Polish Jewry), presented here in a new translation. 

May 14, 2018

A translation of the introduction of Miriam Schulz's recent book, Der Beginn des Untergangs: Die Zerstörung der jüdischen Gemeinden in Polen und das Vermächtnis des Wilnaer Komitees ("Before the bow that was drawn": The Vilna Komitet and its documentation of the destruction of Polish Jewry).

May 14, 2018

Three poems from Abraham Sutzkever’s collection Poems from My Diary.

Dec 05, 2016

Eve Jochnowitz discusses the rise of vegetarian cuisine among Jews, leftist politics, and how to make gefilte fish without any fish at all. 

Sep 27, 2016

The “spatial turn” in the humanities has opened up new kinds of thinking about Jews’ relationship to place. Yet how can this approach—which focuses on the physically concrete—be applied to the field of Yiddish studies, which after all is defined by the intangible factor of language? 

Aug 10, 2015