“translation”

Review

Review of Shira Gorshman's Meant to Be, translated by Faith Jones

Sean Sidky

This is the first book-length collection of Gorshman’s work to be translated into English, with only a handful of stories elsewhere.

Review

Review of Miriam Karpilove's A Provincial Newspaper and Other Stories, translated by Jessica Kirzane

Sarah Imhoff

The women in A Provincial Newspaper and Other Stories are complex, multifaceted characters, and they do not uniformly fixate on love.

Blog

The Latest Yiddish Translations, 2023

Dalia Wolfson

A roundup of translations published in 2023. 

Pedagogy

REESOURCES: Rethinking Eastern Europe - Revolutionizing the Field with Primary Sources

Vladyslava Moskalets

This platform for primary source materials, syllabi, modules, online courses, and reflections gives instructors of East European history the tools to address paradigmatic changes in the field in their teaching.

Pedagogy

Compendium to Found Treasures

Julie Sharff

The aim of this compendium is to make Yiddish originals for the stories in Found Treasures easily available and to preserve some of the materiality of the editor’s task of collecting these short stories.

Blog

Daughterhood

Helen Mintz

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.

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.

Blog

The Latest Yiddish Translations, 2022

Dalia Wolfson

A roundup of translations published in 2022. 

Review

Review of From the Jewish Provinces by Fradl Shtok, translated by Jordan D. Finkin and Allison Schachter

Sonia Gollance

From the Jewish Provinces is a valuable and highly readable addition to Yiddish literature in translation.

Pedagogy

Let's not wait!: Introducing preschoolers to Yiddish through Leah Hoffman's Alefbeys

Beth Dwoskin

In this piece Beth Dwoskin explains how Leah Hoffman's play about the Yiddish alphabet can be adapted for children's classes today. She presents her English translation of the play alongside a recording of the alefbeys song in English.

Interview

"I salvage the shards": an interview with Polish poet Grzegorz Kwiatkowski

Jessica Kirzane and Grzegorz Kwiatkowski

An interview with Polish poet and musician Grzegorz Kwiatkowski.

Interview

Toward Hopeful Skies: A Benefit Volume to Support Ukrainian Relief

The Editors

This August, Naydus Press published Toward Hopeful Skies, a trilingual (Yiddish, Ukrainian, English) volume of two works of children's poetry, as a benefit volume to support the refugee resettlement agency HIAS's work with refugees from Ukraine.

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."

Texts & Translation

װינטער פֿאַרנאַכט

Soir d’hiver

Émile Nelligan

Translation by Sebastian Schulman

Sebastian Schulman invites readers to engage with francophone Québec through a translation of Émile Nelligan’s "Soir d'hiver."

Texts & Translation

Chava Rosenfarb’s Translations into Yiddish of Two English-Language Jewish-Canadian Writers

Miriam Waddington and Adele Wiseman

Translation by Chava Rosenfarb

Edited by Goldie Morgentaler and Ruth Panofsky

Newly-discovered Yiddish translations by Chava Rosenfarb of two Jewish-Canadian authors. 

Review

“Love is Death”: Judith: A Tale of Love and Woe

Sean Sidky

Judith is a novel about the mundanities of life and love that, as perhaps painful and unhealthy as they later turn out to be, persist even as the world around us erupts into violence, and that we carry with us halfway across the world and half a lifetime away.

Interview

Translating Birshteyn into Swedish: A Conversation with John Karlsson

John Karlsson

In this conversation the Yiddish translator John Karlsson from Sweden discusses his most recent project, a translation of Yosl Birshteyn stories into Swedish.

Blog

The Latest Yiddish Translations, 2021

Dalia Wolfson

A roundup of translations published in 2021. 

Review

Review of Childe Harold of Dysna by Moyshe Kulbak, translated by Robert Adler Peckerar

Harriet Murav

Moyshe Kulbak’s Childe Harold of Dysna—a novel in verse that is inspired by Lord Byron and dramatizes the character of the Jewish flaneur—charms, delights, and brings a gentle sorrow.

Texts & Translation

Selections from Neger-Dikhtung in Amerike (Negro-Poetry in America)

Ani­ta Scott Cole­man , Angeli­na Weld Grimke and Claris­sa Scott Delaney

Translation by Robert Magid­off

Edited by Eli Rosenblatt

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.

Review

Review of Sutzkever Essential Prose, translated by Zackary Sholem Berger

Raphael Halff

Halff offers a specific and detailed critique of the translation, while also acknowledging that in this book, filled with Sutzkever’s metaphors, imagery, and motifs, "wonders await."

Texts & Translation

Tsilke the Wild: Part 18

Zusman Segalovitsh

Translation by Daniel Kennedy

A seri­al­ized trans­la­tion of Zus­man Segalovit­sh’s 1922 nov­el.
Part 18 of 18 instalments.

Texts & Translation

Tsilke the Wild: Part 17

Zusman Segalovitsh

Translation by Daniel Kennedy

A seri­al­ized trans­la­tion of Zus­man Segalovit­sh’s 1922 nov­el.
Part 17 of 18 instalments.

Texts & Translation

Tsilke the Wild: Part 16

Zusman Segalovitsh

Translation by Daniel Kennedy

A seri­al­ized trans­la­tion of Zus­man Segalovit­sh’s 1922 nov­el.
Part 16 of 18 instalments.

Texts & Translation

Tsilke the Wild: Part 15

Zusman Segalovitsh

Translation by Daniel Kennedy

A seri­al­ized trans­la­tion of Zus­man Segalovit­sh’s 1922 nov­el.
Part 15 of 18 instalments.

Texts & Translation

Tsilke the Wild: Part 14

Zusman Segalovitsh

Translation by Daniel Kennedy

A seri­al­ized trans­la­tion of Zus­man Segalovit­sh’s 1922 nov­el.
Part 14 of 18 instalments.

Texts & Translation

Tsilke the Wild: Part 13

Zusman Segalovitsh

Translation by Daniel Kennedy

A seri­al­ized trans­la­tion of Zus­man Segalovit­sh’s 1922 nov­el.
Part 13 of 18 instalments.

Texts & Translation

Tsilke the Wild: Part 12

Zusman Segalovitsh

Translation by Daniel Kennedy

A seri­al­ized trans­la­tion of Zus­man Segalovit­sh’s 1922 nov­el.
Part 12 of 18 instalments.

Texts & Translation

Tsilke the Wild: Part 11

Zusman Segalovitsh

Translation by Daniel Kennedy

A seri­al­ized trans­la­tion of Zus­man Segalovit­sh’s 1922 nov­el.
Part 11 of 18 instalments.

Pedagogy

Teaching Guide to Kadya Molodovsky's A Jewish Refugee in New York trans. Anita Norich

Lizy Mostowski

A teaching guide for Kadya Molodovsky's A Jewish Refugee in New York (trans. Anita Norich) in the context of refugee literatures.

Texts & Translation

Tsilke the Wild: Part 10

Zusman Segalovitsh

Translation by Daniel Kennedy

A seri­al­ized trans­la­tion of Zus­man Segalovit­sh’s 1922 nov­el.
Part 10 of 18 instalments.

Pedagogy

The Yudika Variations: Translating b'Chevrusa

Faith Jones and Annie Sommer Kaufman

The authors describe an exercise in which they translate and re-translate the same text into different formats.

Texts & Translation

Tsilke the Wild: Part 9

Zusman Segalovitsh

Translation by Daniel Kennedy

A seri­al­ized trans­la­tion of Zus­man Segalovit­sh’s 1922 nov­el.
Part 9 of 18 instalments.

Texts & Translation

Tsilke the Wild: Part 8

Zusman Segalovitsh

Translation by Daniel Kennedy

A seri­al­ized trans­la­tion of Zus­man Segalovit­sh’s 1922 nov­el.
Part 8 of 18 instalments.

Review

Sewn with the Tiniest of Pearls

Jessica Kirzane

Murphy’s translations of Perl’s stories allow us to appreciate an ever more colorful canvas of modern Yiddish literature.

Texts & Translation

Tsilke the Wild: Part 7

Zusman Segalovitsh

Translation by Daniel Kennedy

A seri­al­ized trans­la­tion of Zus­man Segalovit­sh’s 1922 nov­el.
Part 7 of 18 instalments.

Texts & Translation

די ווילדע צילקע: טייל 6

Tsilke the Wild: part 6

Zusman Segalovitsh

Translation by Daniel Kennedy

A serialized translation of Zusman Segalovitsh's 1922 novel.
Part 6 of 18 instalments.

Texts & Translation

די ווילדע צילקע: טייל 5

Tsilke the Wild: part 5

Zusman Segalovitsh

Translation by Daniel Kennedy

A serialized translation of Zusman Segalovitsh's 1922 novel.
Part 5 of 18 instalments.

Texts & Translation

די ווילדע צילקע: טייל 4

Tsilke the Wild: part 4

Zusman Segalovitsh

Translation by Daniel Kennedy

A serialized translation of Zusman Segalovitsh's 1922 novel.
Part 4 of 18 instalments.

Texts & Translation

די ווילדע צילקע: טייל 3

Tsilke the Wild: part 3

Zusman Segalovitsh

Translation by Daniel Kennedy

A serialized translation of Zusman Segalovitsh's 1922 novel.
Part 3 of 18 instalments.

Texts & Translation

די ווילדע צילקע: טייל 2

Tsilke the Wild: part 2

Zusman Segalovitsh

Translation by Daniel Kennedy

A serialized translation of Zusman Segalovitsh's 1922 novel.
Part 2 of 18 instalments.

Texts & Translation

די ווילדע צילקע: טייל 1

Tsilke the Wild: part 1

Zusman Segalovitsh

Translation by Daniel Kennedy

A serialized translation of Zusman Segalovitsh's 1922 novel.
Part 1 of 18 instalments.

Blog

The Latest Yiddish Translations, 2020

Daniel Kennedy

A roundup of translations published in 2020. 

Texts & Translation

Tsilke the Wild

Daniel Kennedy

Tsilke the Wild by Zusman Segalovitch: Introduction and resources 

Blog

The Golden Chain: A Children's Story

Jessica Kirzane

An original children's story celebrating Yiddish-English translation.

Article

Shylock’s Jewish Way of Speaking

Nahma Sandrow

What if Shylock spoke Yiddish? One experimental production of Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" did just that.

Review

Review of Seeds in the Desert by Mendel Mann, translated and with an introduction by Heather Valencia

Shachar Pinsker

These stories take place in Israeli cities, towns, and villages, in the post-war Soviet Union, and in Poland of the interwar period. However, it is often very difficult to tell where the stories actually take place, because they express an experience of dislocation and total disorientation.

Blog

Translating and Teaching Yiddish Prose by Women

Anita Norich

It is time to stop lamenting the paucity of available Yiddish prose works by women and, instead, to translate more and to use the wealth of material that is already available.

Blog

The Latest Yiddish Translations, 2019

Daniel Kennedy

A roundup of translations published in 2019. 

Interview

Confessions of a Yiddish Writer and Other Essays: An Interview with Goldie Morgentaler

Matthew Johnson and Corbin Allardice

Matthew Johnson and Corbin Allardice talk with Goldie Morgentaler, Chava Rosenfarb’s daughter and editor and translator of a recently published collection of Rosenfarb's essays. 

Article

Louis Zukofsky: Building a Poetics of Translation

Sarah Ponichtera

How the poet Louis Zukofsky constructed his English-language American modernism by citing, translating, and adapting the Yiddish poetry of Yehoash.

Review

Women’s Voices from Yiddish to Polish

Aleksandra Kremer

Kremer reviews two new volumes dealing with Yiddish poetry, both published in Poland in 2018, which focus on the work of women poets. 

Pedagogy

On the Pedagogic Uses of Literal Translation

Lawrence Rosenwald

Lawrence Rosenwald considers the uses and meanings of literal translation in the classroom.

Blog

Translating the Holocaust

Jonah S. Boyarin

Jonah Boyarin explores the process of his translation of Mordkhe Wolfshaut-Dinkes’s holocaust memoir, Checkmate: The Miracle of My Life.

Blog

A Tale of Two Translators: Yehoash and Alter Take on the Tanakh

Jeffrey Shandler

The recent publication of Robert Alter’s long-awaited complete translation of the entire Hebrew Bible into English is a en enormous achievement. But Alter is not the first to tackle this monumental project; almost a century earlier, Solomon Bloomgarten—better known by his pen name, Yehoash—produced a landmark translation of the same text into Yiddish. 

Blog

The Latest Yiddish Translations, 2018

Maia Evrona, Jessica Kirzane and Daniel Kennedy

A roundup of translations published in 2018. 

Review

Die Geometrie des Verzichts: Deborah Vogel's poetry, essays, and letters in a new German translation and compilation

Anastasiya Lyubas

This volume, edited and translated by Anna Maja Misiak, is the first edition of Debora Vogel’s work in any language to include all of her prose and poetry.

Texts & Translation

פֿון מגילה לידער

Excerpts from Itsik Manger's Megile Lider (Megillah Poems)

Itzik Manger

Translation by Hershl Hartman

The Book of Esther as reimagined by Itsik Manger 

Review

Judgment

Boris Dralyuk

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. 

Blog

Queering Broadway: Indecent and Lesbian Yiddish Love

C. Tova Markenson

Onstage, intimacy that's untranslatable. 

Interview

Remedy Before the Sickness: Eli Rosen on Translating Rhinoceros into Yiddish

Tova Benjamin

Tova Benjamin talks with Eli Rosen, translator of Rhinoceros, about fascism, Talmudic tractates, Yiddish fluency, and going OTD.

Texts & Translation

Taytsh-Rope Walking: The Occupational Hazards of Yiddish Translation

Daniel Kennedy

In an effort to pool the collective wisdom of its readership In geveb regularly conducts polls on various topics. This time we have asked the translators to weigh in.

Blog

Yiddish, Translation, and a World Literature To-Come

Saul Noam Zaritt

In geveb's founding editor discusses different models of Yiddish in relation to world literature through the figures of Sholem Asch and Jacob Glatstein. 

Texts & Translation

דער מאַרש צו די גױים

The March to the Goyim

Jacob Glatstein

Translation by Saul Noam Zaritt

A no-holds-barred essay from Jacob Glatstein on publishing, translation, and world literature. 

Pedagogy

Teaching Guide for Yoysef Kerler’s “Old Fashioned” and “The Sea” (trans. Evrona)

Jessica Kirzane

The second in a series of teaching guides, this one for Maia Evrona's translation of Yoysef Kerler's poems "Old Fashioned" and "The Sea" (1979).

Article

New Yiddish Film and the Transvernacular

Rebecca Margolis

The study of Yiddish cinema gets updated for the twenty-first century, Margolis explores how the language is being used in film in the last decade. 

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. 

Pedagogy

לויט די לערערס | Teachers Weigh In: Teaching Texts in Translation

Jessica Kirzane

Instructors share their thoughts on teaching Yiddish texts in translation. 

Interview

“Conversion through language”: Mo Pareles on Yiddish, Old English, and the Temporal Other

Sarah Ellen Zarrow

A medievalist uses Yiddish in her scriptural scholarship. 

Pedagogy

Teaching Guide for Dik's "Slavery or Serfdom" (trans. Rosenblatt)

Jessica Kirzane

The first in a series of teaching guides, this one for Eli Rosenblatt’s translation of Isaac Meir Dik’s introduction to his 1868 adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852).

Review

Jerold C. Frakes: Early Yiddish Epic

Rachel Wamsley

Jerold Frakes’s recent English anthology makes early Yiddish epic accessible to a broad audience for the first time. 

Pedagogy

Invitation to Participate: How Do You Teach With Translated Texts from Yiddish?

The Editors

Do you teach using translated texts from Yiddish sources? Tell us about it. 

Interview

Radical, Rational Eating: Eve Jochnowitz on Eastern European Vegetarians, Jewish Politics, and Translating The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook

Sarah Ellen Zarrow

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

Blog

The Lonely Hero Needs Reanimating: Poems by Yisroel Nekrasov | רעאַנימאַטאָרן קענען אַלץ: לידער פֿון ישׂראל נעקראַסאָוו

Zackary Sholem Berger

A new book of contemporary Yiddish poetry from the Russian writer Yisroel Nekrasov considers murder, reanimation, the geography of time, and the long work of mourning. 

Interview

Embracing the Multiple: A Conversation with Zohar Weiman-Kelman

Temim Fruchter

Zohar Weiman-Kelman on the intersections of Yiddish, translation, and the erotic. 

Blog

Embracing Ambiguity: Reflections on Translating Yiddish

Anita Norich

Professor Anita Norich concludes our series of reflections on Translating Yiddish in the twenty-first century by reconsidering our relationship to ambiguity in translation. 

Blog

Translating the Iceberg: Reflections on the Possibilities of In geveb’s Texts & Translations Section

Madeleine Cohen

In geveb's Managing Editor for Translations reflects on the need and possibilities for translating the archives of Yiddish culture, in addition to the greats of its literature. 

Blog

Translation from Yiddish: Whys and Wherefores

Zackary Sholem Berger

Zackary Sholem Berger reflects upon the roundtable discussion at AJS last December that inspired this series, and on his own motivations as a translator from Yiddish and a writer in English and Yiddish. 

Texts & Translation

בינטשע די צדקתטע אָדער די אײַנגעפֿאַלענע באָד

Bintshe the Tsadeykeste or The Demolished Bathhouse

Jacob Morgenstern

Translation by Myra Mniewski

A new translation of a nineteenth century chapbook detailing the comic adventures of a woman named Bintshe and her mission to save a dilapidated bathhouse. 

Blog

The Problem of Materiality in Yiddish Translation

Sarah Ponichtera

In the second essay in our series of reflections on translating Yiddish in the twenty-first century, Sarah Ponichtera thinks about how we can bring a sense of materiality to our translations. 

Blog

Precarious Chains: Reflections on Translating Yiddish

Saul Noam Zaritt

Chief Editor Saul Noam Zaritt introduces our series of essays reflecting on the state of Yiddish translation. 

Interview

"Eight Volumes in Dour Maroon": Josh Fogel on Translating the Leksikon

Madeleine Cohen and Dade Lemanski

The Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur, which is full of hard-to-find biographical and bibliographical information about Yiddish writers, is tough to access outside institutions or from the far side of a paywall. By methodically translating and posting entries from the Leksikon online, Josh Fogel is working to change that. 

Blog

Yehoash’s Scroll: A Calligraphed Megiles Ester

Shifra Epstein

In honor of Purim, a fine calligraphed scroll of Yehoash's translation into Yiddish of the Book of Esther, completed by the poet's daughter Chava.

Blog

Vilne? Vilna? Wilno? Vilnius?: Place Names in Yiddish

Ben Sadock, Samuel J. Spinner and Sarah Ellen Zarrow

Our editorial team discusses/debates our guidelines for translating and transliterating place names from the Yiddish.

Interview

"We Should Not Create Enemies": Europe's Refugee Crisis and Yiddish Song

Sonia Gollance

Austrian shepherd Hans Breuer on driving refugees across the border, and getting famous for singing Yiddish songs.