The texts collected in this volume unveil the practice and the methods of the translators and scholars who contributed to the reemergence of Yiddish in contemporary Canada. Each of the personalities discussed enlarged the historical position and interpreted various aspects of the Yiddish language in Montreal that until recently remained obscure or inaccessible. -- Les textes rassemblés dans ce volume tentent de lever le voile sur la démarche et les méthodes des traducteurs et chercheurs qui ont contribué à la réémergence du yiddish dans le Canada contemporain. Ces traducteurs et chercheurs ont élargi l’assise historique et interprété de nombreux aspects de la langue yiddish à Montréal, aspects qui jusque-là demeuraient obscurs et inaccessibles.
The Routledge Handbook to Contemporary Jewish Cultures explores the diversity of Jewish cultures and ways of investigating them, presenting the different methodologies, arguments and challenges within the discipline. Divided into themed sections, this book considers in turn: How the individual terms "Jewish" and "culture" are defined, looking at perspectives from Anthropology, Music, Literary Studies, Sociology, Religious Studies, History, Art History, and Film, Television, and New Media Studies. How Jewish cultures are theorized, looking at key themes regarding power, textuality, religion/secularity, memory, bodies, space and place, and networks. Case studies in contemporary Jewish cultures. With essays by leading scholars in Jewish culture, this book offers a clear overview of the field and offers exciting new directions for the future.
The language of a thousand years of European Jewish civilization that was decimated in the Nazi Holocaust, Yiddish has emerged as a vehicle for young people to engage with their heritage and identity. Although widely considered an endangered language, Yiddish has evolved as a site for creative renewal in the Jewish world and beyond in addition to being used daily within Hasidic communities. Yiddish Lives On explores the continuity of the language in the hands of a diverse group of native, heritage, and new speakers. The book tells stories of communities in Canada and abroad that have resisted the decline of Yiddish over a period of seventy years, spotlighting strategies that facilitate continuity through family transmission, theatre, activism, publishing, song, cinema, and other new media. Rebecca Margolis uses a multidisciplinary approach that draws on methodologies from history, sociolinguistics, ethnography, digital humanities, and screen studies to examine the ways in which engagement with Yiddish has evolved across multiple planes. Investigating the products of an abiding dedication to cultural continuity among successive generations, Yiddish Lives On offers innovative approaches to the preservation, promotion, and revitalization of minority, heritage, and lesser-taught languages.
The divided Montreal of the 1960s is very different from today's cosmopolitan, hybrid city. Taking the perspective of a walker moving through a fluid landscape of neighbourhoods and eras, Sherry Simon experiences Montreal as a voyage across languages. Sketching out literary passages from the then of the colonial city to the now of the cosmopolitan Montreal, she traces a history of crossings and intersections around the familiar sites and symbols of the city - the mythical boulevard Saint-Laurent, Mile End, the Jacques-Cartier Bridge, Mont-Royal.
The 2012 American Jewish Year Book, “The Annual Record of American Jewish Civilization,” contains major chapters on Jewish secularism (Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar), Canadian Jewry (Morton Weinfeld, David Koffman, and Randal Schnoor), national affairs (Ethan Felson), Jewish communal affairs (Lawrence Grossman), Jewish population in the United States (Ira Sheskin and Arnold Dashefsky), and World Jewish population (Sergio DellaPergola). These chapters provide insight into major trends in the North American and world Jewish community. The volume also acts as a resource for the American Jewish community and for academics studying that community by supplying obituaries and lists of Jewish Federations, Jewish Community Centers, national Jewish organizations, Jewish overnight camps, Jewish museums, Holocaust museums, local and national Jewish periodicals, Jewish honorees, major recent events in the American Jewish community, and academic journals, articles, websites, and books. The volume should prove useful to social scientists and historians of the American Jewish community, Jewish communal workers, the press, and others interested in American and Canadian Jews.
Much of Canadian cultural life is sustained and enriched by translation. Translation Effects moves beyond restrictive notions of official translation in Canada, analyzing its activities and effects on the streets, in movie theatres, on stages, in hospitals, in courtrooms, in literature, in politics, and across café tables. The first comprehensive study of the intersection of translation and culture, Translation Effects offers an original picture of translation practices across many languages and through several decades of Canadian life. The book presents detailed case studies of specific events and examines the reverberation and spread of their effects. Through these imaginative, at times unusual, investigations, the contributors unveil the simultaneous invisibility and omnipresence of translation and present a cross-cut of Canadian translation moments. Addressing the period from the 1950s to the present and including a wide scope of examples from medical interpreting to film dubbing, the essays in this book create a panoramic view of the creation of modern culture in Canada. Contributors include Piere Anctil (University of Ottawa), Hélène Buzelin (Université de Montréal), Alessandra Capperdoni (Simon Fraser University), Philippe Cardinal, Andrew Clifford (York University), Beverley Curran, Renée Desjardins (University of Ottawa), Ray Ellenwood, David Gaertner, Chantal Gagnon (Université de Montréal), Patricia Godbout, Hugh Hazelton, Jane Koustas (Brock University), Louise Ladouceur (Université de l'Albera, Gillian Lane-Mercier (McGill University), George Lang, Rebecca Margolis, Sophie McCall (Simon Fraser University), Julie Dolmaya McDonough, Denise Merkle (Université de Moncton), Kathy Mezei, Sorouja Moll, Brian Mossop, Daisy Neijmann, Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Joseph Pivato, Gregory Reid, Robert Schwartzwald, Sherry Simon, Luise von Flotow (University of Ottawa), and Christine York.
This book examines the cultural work of space and memory in Canada and Canadian literature, and encourages readers to investigate Canada within its regional, national, and global contexts. It features seven chapters in English and five in French, with a bilingual introduction. The contributors invite us to recognize local intersections that are so easily overlooked, yet are so important. They reveal the unities and fractures in national understanding, telling stories of otherness and marginality and of dislocation and un-belonging. Ce livre examine l’importance culturelle de l’espace et de la mémoire en contexte canadien et plus spécifiquement dans les littératures du pays, afin d’inviter des lectures neuves des questions régionales, nationales et globales. Il rassemble sept chapitres en anglais et cinq en français, en plus d’une introduction bilingue. Les contributions, favorisant des approches thématiques et théoriques variées, sont réunies par leur désir de mettre en lumière des croisements inédits entre la mémoire et l’espace en tant qu’ils définissent certains des problèmes les plus brûlants de notre époque au Canada. S’y révèle l’équilibre fort instable entre récits unitaires et fractures communautaires, entre altérité et marginalité, ou entre dislocation et désappartenance. Contributors / Collaborateurs: Albert Braz, Samantha Cook, Jennifer Delisle, Lise Gaboury-Diallo, Smaro Kamboureli, Janne Korkka, André Lamontagne, Margaret Mackey, Sherry Simon, Pamela Sing, Camille van der Marel, Erin Wunker
Taking stock of Yiddish literature in 1939, critic Shmuel Niger highlighted the increasing number and importance of women writers. However, awareness of women Yiddish writers diminished over the years. Today, a modest body of novels, short stories, poems and essays by Yiddish women may be found in English translation online and in print, and little in the way of literary history and criticism is available. This collection of critical essays is the first dedicated to the works of Yiddish women writers, introducing them to a new audience of English-speaking scholars and readers.
This History offers an unparalleled examination of all aspects of Jewish American literature. Jewish writing has played a central role in the formation of the national literature of the United States, from the Hebraic sources of the Puritan imagination to narratives of immigration and acculturation. This body of writing has also enriched global Jewish literature in its engagement with Jewish history and Jewish multilingual culture. Written by a host of leading scholars, The Cambridge History of Jewish American Literature offers an array of approaches that contribute to current debates about ethnic writing, minority discourse, transnational literature, gender studies, and multilingualism. This History takes a fresh look at celebrated authors, introduces new voices, locates Jewish American literature on the map of American ethnicity as well as the spaces of exile and diaspora, and stretches the boundaries of American literature beyond the Americas and the West.
