“lynching”


Special Issue

Race in America, af yidish

Translations, articles, and reflections focusing on Yiddish perspectives on race in the United States.

Texts & Translation

לינטשערײַ

A Lynching

Joseph Opatoshu

Translation by Jessica Kirzane

The gritty, and controversial 1920s account of a lynching by Joseph Opatoshu.

Article

Beyond the Color Line: Jews, Blacks, and the American Racial Imagination

Jennifer Young

NYU Doctoral Candidate Jennifer Young explores the complicated ways in which American Jews claimed whiteness while examining and often identifying with Black American struggles.

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. 

Article

“This is How a Generation Grows”: Lynching as a Site of Ethical Loss in Opatoshu’s “Lintsheray”

Jessica Kirzane

What can Opatoshu's controversial story about a lynching tell us about the complex Jewish encounter with American culture and the potential loss of an ethical tradition.

Article

Yiddish Exceptionalism: Lynching, Race, and Racism in Opatoshu’s “Lintsheray”

Marc Caplan

How can Yiddish describe the scene of a lynching of a black man? Marc Caplan examines the language strategies of Opatoshu's "Lintsheray."

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. 

Texts & Translation

דער פֿערציקיעריקער מאַן

The Forty-Year-Old Man

Peretz Markish

Translation by Rose Waldman

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