Yiddish Literature

Entry in Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th edition on Yiddish Literature

Yiddish Translation in Canada: A Litmus Test for Continuity

Yiddish translation has been a two-way phenomenon in Canada in the twentieth century that mirrors the changing identity of Jews of Eastern European origin. The Yiddish press translated Canada to the Jewish immigrant masses while Yiddish schools translated ideology to their children. Translations from world literature into Yiddish that appeared in a series of literary journals in the 1920s and 1930s introduced art and ideas to their readerships and demonstrate that Yiddish is a language on a par with other modern languages. Translations from sacred Hebrew-Aramaic texts served both to bring these texts to readers in their vernacular, and, in particular in the post-Holocaust era, as monuments to a lost tradition. Conversely, translations from Yiddish into English allowed authors a wider readership as Jews began to acculturate and adopt English as their primary language. Most recently, Yiddish translations into both French and English have created wider access to both literature and non-fiction materials among non-Yiddish readers.La traduction yiddish est un phénomène à double sens au Canada au XXe siècle, reflétant ainsi l’identité changeante des Juifs originaires de l’Europe de l’Est. Les journaux yiddish ont traduit le Canada aux immigrants autant que les écoles yiddish ont traduit l’idéologie à leurs enfants. Les traductions de la littérature mondiale vers le yiddish qui ont paru dans des revues littéraires dans les années 1920 et 1930 ont introduit l’art et les idées au lectorat et ont prouvé que le yiddish est une langue égale aux autres langues modernes. Les traductions des textes hébreux-araméens sacrés ont servi à présenter ces textes aux lecteurs dans leur langue vernaculaire et, surtout après l’Holocauste, comme monument d’une tradition perdue. Inversement, les traductions du yiddish en anglais ont permis aux auteurs d’atteindre un lectorat plus large au moment où les Juifs ont commencé à s’intégrer et à adopter l’anglais comme leur langue principale. Plus récemment, les traductions du yiddish en français et en anglais ont créé un accès plus large aux textes littéraires et non romanesques aux lecteurs non yiddish

Il teatro Yiddish in America

Il contributo vuole tracciare una storia del teatro Yiddish e, in particolare, del suo sviluppo e della sua fortuna in America.Beside literature, Yiddish drama is the most outstanding part of Yiddish culture. Yiddish drama begins in Germany in 1711 with the publication of Mekirat Yosef (Sale of Joseph) by Baerman Limburg. A farce, Der Falsche Kaschtan by Saphir, follows in 1820 but only during the 1830s a first development of Yiddish Theatre is registered in Warsaw. The real Yiddish theatre, however, begins with Goldfaden who, about 1875, first established a permanent Yiddish theatre venue in Iasi, near Bucharest, Romania. After the Russian progroms and the beginning of the so-called “Third Diaspora”, the Yiddish theatre migrates to USA as well. Since then Yiddish theatre increased its activities reaching soon a prominent position in the New York showbiz. This essay is intended to provide an overview of such unique experience, from its very beginning to contemporary productions

The Continuing Story of the Yiddish Language: The Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts

The focus of my article is a unique place, the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, which connects Yiddish culture with the American one, the experience of the Holocaust with the descendants of the survivors, and a modern idea of Jewishness with the context of American postmodernity. Created in the 1980s, in the mind of a young and enthusiastic student Aaron Lansky, the Yiddish Book Center throughout the years has become a unique place on the American cultural map. Traversing the continents and crossing borders, Lansky and his co-workers for over thirty years have been saving Yiddish language books from extinction. The Center, however, has long stopped to be merely a storage house for the collection, but instead has grown into a vibrant hub of Yiddishkeit in the United States. Its employees do not only collect, distribute, digitalize and post online the forgotten volumes, but also engage in diverse activities, scholarly and cultural, that promote the survival of the tradition connected with Yiddish culture. They educate, offering internships and fellowships to students interested in learning Yiddish from across the world, translate, publish, and exhibit Yiddish language materials, in this way finding new users for the language whose speakers were virtually annihilated by the Holocaust. To honour their legacy, a separate project is aimed at conducting video interviews that record life testimonies of the speakers of Yiddish. Aaron Lansky’s 2004 memoir, Outwitting History, provides an interesting insight into the complexities of his arduous life mission. Today, the Center lives its own unique life, serving the world of academia and Yiddishkeit enthusiasts alike

Yiddish

Weitere Informationen unter: http://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/dovid_stylistics.htm This version of the entry for Yiddish contains a moderate number of revisions made too late for inclusion in the printed version, which appears in vol. 1, pp. 979-987 of the Yivo Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Some of these changes were made in response to helpful comments by Dr. Alexander Beider of Paris to a previous online version posted on the YIVO websit

Entangled Stories: The Red Jews in Premodern Yiddish and German Apocalyptic Lore

“Far, far away from our areas, somewhere beyond the Mountains of Darkness, on the other side of the Sambatyon River…there lives a nation known as the Red Jews.” The Red Jews are best known from classic Yiddish writing, most notably from Mendele's Kitser masoes Binyomin hashlishi (The Brief Travels of Benjamin the Third). This novel, first published in 1878, represents the initial appearance of the Red Jews in modern Yiddish literature. This comical travelogue describes the adventures of Benjamin, who sets off in search of the legendary Red Jews. But who are these Red Jews or, in Yiddish, di royte yidelekh? The term denotes the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, the ten tribes that in biblical times had composed the Northern Kingdom of Israel until they were exiled by the Assyrians in the eighth century BCE. Over time, the myth of their return emerged, and they were said to live in an uncharted location beyond the mysterious Sambatyon River, where they would remain until the Messiah's arrival at the end of time, when they would rejoin the rest of the Jewish people. This article is part of a broader study of the Red Jews in Jewish popular culture from the Middle Ages through modernity. It is partially based on a chapter from my book, Umstrittene Erlöser: Politik, Ideologie und jüdisch-christlicher Messianismus in Deutschland, 1500–1600 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011). Several postdoctoral fellowships have generously supported my research on the Red Jews: a Dr. Meyer-Struckmann-Fellowship of the German Academic Foundation, a Harry Starr Fellowship in Judaica/Alan M. Stroock Fellowship for Advanced Research in Judaica at Harvard University, a research fellowship from the Heinrich Hertz-Foundation, and a YIVO Dina Abramowicz Emerging Scholar Fellowship. I thank the organizers of and participants in the colloquia and conferences where I have presented this material in various forms as well as the editors and anonymous reviewers of AJS Review for their valuable comments and suggestions. I am especially grateful to Jeremy Dauber and Elisheva Carlebach of the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies at Columbia University, where I was a Visiting Scholar in the fall of 2009, for their generous encouragement to write this article. Sue Oren considerably improved my English. The style employed for Romanization of Yiddish follows YIVO's transliteration standards. Unless otherwise noted, translations from the Yiddish, Hebrew, German, and Latin are my own. Quotations from the Bible follow the JPS translation, and those from the Babylonian Talmud are according to the Hebrew-English edition of the Soncino Talmud by Isidore Epstein

Parcours et origines de la littérature yiddish montréalaise

Qu’en est-il de l’héritage littéraire qu’ont légué les écrivains yiddish de Montréal ? Afin de répondre à cette question, l’auteure fournit certains repères linguistiques et examine le contexte socio-historique et culturel ayant mené à l’émergence d’une littérature yiddish spécifiquement montréalaise. Rappeler le parcours et les origines de celle-ci, qui est la plus importante, en termes de nombre d’auteurs et de textes produits, de toutes celles qui sont issues du phénomène de l’immigration littéraire au Québec, présente deux avantages : donner une vue d’ensemble de cette littérature selon une trame historique, et interroger l’inscription du patrimoine qu’ont construit lesWhat is the legacy of Montreal’s Yiddish writers? To answer this question, the author provides a number of linguistic reference points and examines the socio-historical and cultural context that led to the appearance of Montreal’s specific Yiddish literature. In terms of numbers of authors and texts produced, this literature is the most important body of work arising from the phenomenon of literary immigration to Quebec. Recalling its trajectory and origins serves two purposes: it provides an overall historical view of Montreal’s Yiddish literature, and it allows us to ask how the work of Yiddish writers is inscribed in Montreal’s literary field.¿Qué sucede con la herencia literaria legada por los escritores yiddish de Montreal? Con el fin de contestar a esta pregunta, la autora proporciona algunas referencias lingüísticas y examina el contexto socio-histórico y cultural que llevó a la aparición de una literatura yiddish específicamente montrealense. Rememorar el recorrido y los orígenes de ésta, que es la más importante en cuanto al número de autores y de textos producidos de todas las que se originan en el fenómeno de la inmigración literaria en Quebec, ofrece dos ventajas: dar una visión de conjunto de dicha literatura según una trama histórica, e interrogar la inscripción del patrimonio construido por los autores yiddish en el área literaria de Montreal