Intellectual biography of Holocaust historian Lucy S. Dawidowicz. From Left to Right: Lucy S. Dawidowicz, the New York Intellectuals, and the Politics of Jewish History is the first comprehensive biography of Dawidowicz (1915–1990), a pioneer historian in the field that is now called Holocaust studies. Dawidowicz was a household name in the postwar years, not only because of her scholarship but also due to her political views. Dawidowicz, like many other New York intellectuals, was a youthful communist, became an FDR democrat midcentury, and later championed neoconservatism. Nancy Sinkoff argues that Dawidowicz’s rightward shift emerged out of living in prewar Poland, watching the Holocaust unfold from New York City, and working with displaced persons in postwar Germany. Based on over forty-five archival collections, From Left to Right chronicles Dawidowicz’s life as a window into the major events and issues of twentieth-century Jewish life.
The translation of the Bible into the vernacular is a venerable Jewish tradition, more than two thousand years old. Ashkenazi Jewish culture was a latecomer to the vernacular Bible, and it was only in the sixteenth century that the Yiddish Bible made its appearance in print. Almost one hundred years ago, Wilhelm Staerk and Albert Leitzmann's survey of Early Modern Yiddish Bible translations was the first attempt to define this genre of Early Modern Yiddish literature. In the intervening century there has been relatively little scholarly interest in these texts. The purpose of the present study is to survey the present state of research in this field and place these works in the context of the popular religious culture of Ashkenazi Jewry, which is defined by its use of Yiddish as a means of both oral communication and literary production. The subject of this study is every Yiddish work from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that is directly or indirectly related to the Bible. The survey begins with the Mirkevet ha-Mishneh, the first published Yiddish book, which is a biblical concordance, published in Cracow, 1534-36, and concludes with the two competing translations of the entire Bible into Yiddish by Yekutiel Blitz and Joseph Witzenhausen, published in Amsterdam, 1676-86. (These were translations without any accompanying commentaries, and were modeled on Protestant Bibles, like the English King James, or the German Luther Bible.) The study includes not only translations of biblical books, but also adaptations, reworkings, and paraphrases of biblical texts, appearing in diverse literary styles, by a wide variety of authors. King David, for example, is presented in the Shmuel Bukh as a combination of medieval chivalric hero and rabbinic scholar who is careful to observe the strictures of Halakhah. The story of Jonah is retold through a midrashic lens, and concludes with a kabbalistic parable that analogizes Jonah's journey to that of the soul from conception through life, death, and return to its heavenly source. Some authors take great liberties with the biblical text. The author of the paraphrase of Isaiah only includes what he considers to be prophetic utterances and disregards the rest of the book. Another author decides that the second half of the Torah is too legalistic and not worth retelling, so he ends his commentary after the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. As for the Five Scrolls, Lamentations is too depressing so he ignores it. There are also surprising inclusions in these volumes, such as the books of Judith and Susanna from the Apocrypha, and the very colorful medieval version of the Book of Ben Sira, which is considered by modern scholars to be a parody.
Collects leading scholars' insight on the plays, production, music, audiences, and political and aesthetic concerns of modern Yiddish theater. While Yiddish theater is best known as popular entertainment, it has been shaped by its creators' responses to changing social and political conditions. Inventing the Modern Yiddish Stage: Essays in Drama, Performance, and Show Business showcases the diversity of modern Yiddish theater by focusing on the relentless and far-ranging capacity of its performers, producers, critics, and audiences for self-invention. Editors Joel Berkowitz and Barbara Henry have assembled essays from leading scholars that trace the roots of modern Yiddish drama and performance in nineteenth-century Eastern Europe and span a century and a half and three continents, beyond the heyday of a Yiddish stage that was nearly eradicated by the Holocaust, to its post-war life in Western Europe and Israel. Each chapter takes its own distinct approach to its subject and is accompanied by an appendix consisting of primary material, much of it available in English translation for the first time, to enrich readers' appreciation of the issues explored and also to serve as supplementary classroom texts. Chapters explore Yiddish theater across a broad geographical span--from Poland and Russia to France, the United States, Argentina, and Israel and Palestine. Readers will spend time with notable individuals and troupes; meet creators, critics, and audiences; sample different dramatic genres; and learn about issues that preoccupied both artists and audiences. The final section presents an extensive bibliography of book-length works and scholarly articles on Yiddish drama and theater, the most comprehensive resource of its kind. Collectively these essays illuminate the modern Yiddish stage as a phenomenon that was constantly reinventing itself and simultaneously examining and questioning that very process. Scholars of Jewish performance and those interested in theater history will appreciate this wide-ranging volume.
Bovo d'Antona by Elye Bokher (Elyiahu ben Asher haLevi Ashkenazi, 1469-1549) is a chivalry poem written in Yiddish in Padoa, in the year 1507, and printed under the author's supervision in Isny (Germany) in the year 1541. The present book intends to present a critical edition of this poem, together with a commentary. An introduction will focus on various related questions, such as the place of the Bovo d'Antona in European literature and in Italian literature, Bovo d'Antona and the chivalric genre in Old Yiddish literature, the analysis of the manuscript versions in comparison with the printed edition, the relationship with the Italian source and the readership. An appendix will deal with later transformations of the Bovo-Bukh. "Bovo Bukh is an excellent example of the relationship between romances and folktales,and Rosenzweigʼs introduction and edition of this important early Yiddish text will be appreciated by scholars of early Modern literature and folk narrative." - Dr. David Elton Gay, Indiana University, in: Fabula 59:1-2 (2018)
This book offers sociological and structural descriptions of language varieties used in over 2 dozen Jewish communities around the world, along with synthesizing and theoretical chapters. Language descriptions focus on historical development, contemporary use, regional and social variation, structural features, and Hebrew/Aramaic loanwords. The book covers commonly researched language varieties, like Yiddish, Judeo-Spanish, and Judeo-Arabic, as well as less commonly researched ones, like Judeo-Tat, Jewish Swedish, and Hebraized Amharic in Israel today.
A reference book on Modern Hebrew morphology and syntax, this describes the language as it is really spoken and written in Israel today. The author pays particular attention to functional distinctions, giving equal weight to colloquial and formal usage.
"In the summers of 1978 and 1980, William W. Hallo directed two National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminars, both of which had the title: 'Biblical History in its Near Eastern Setting.' These seminars, conducted at Yale University, have now resulted in two related collections of essays. This second collection, Scripture in Context II, had its origins in the 1980 seminar. Both seminars investigated in chronological sequence the major phases of ancient Near Eastern history and focused on the history, literary traditions, and religion of ancient Israel within the context of her cultural environs. A major concern was to recognize and explore the implications of the way in which the native biblical and extra-biblical literary traditions rendered account of themselves. The methodology followed in the seminars and the resulting essays is the contextual approach. This approach to the study of biblical history, literature, and religion is concerned not only to discover illuminating and insightful parallels between biblical and extrabiblical sources, but also to note and recognize the implications of significant and important differences."--Jacket.
The Seyder Tkhines, translated from its original Yiddish by noted tkhines scholar, Devra Kay, and centerpiece of this groundbreaking work, was a standard Yiddish prayer book for women. It first appeared in Amsterdam in 1648, and continued to be published for the next three generations, usually inside the Hebrew synagogue prayer book. A product of an age when mysticism pervaded mainstream Judaism, the Seyder Tkhines provided women with newly composed, alternative daily prayers that were more specific to their needs. Included in this volume is a unique Yiddish manuscript dating from the 17th century ? a collection of prayers written specifically for a rich, pregnant woman, which Kay discovered among the rare books of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England. Now, for the first time, these prayers have been skillfully translated and brought to public view. In addition to her translations, Kay presents her own extensive commentary, providing a deeper understanding of the historic, religious, and cultural background of this period in Jewish history. This unparalleled book will have special appeal to those interested in the social, literary, and religious history of women, as well as the history of the Yiddish language and literature. The interest in these forgotten prayers and their significance to the lives of women has now been revived, and these tkhines are ready to be rediscovered by a modern readership.
"Defining the Yiddish Nation examines the evolution of Yiddish folklore and the pioneering work of three important folklore circles in independent Poland: the Warsaw group led by Noyekh Prilutski, the S. Ansky Vilne Jewish Historical-Ethnographic Society, and the YIVO Ethnographic Commission. Much more than a study of one particular folklore tradition, however, Defining the Yiddish Nation reveals how the work of the Yiddish folklorists sought to connect Jewish identity with the past, while simultaneously contributing to an autonomous Jewish national culture that would help reshape the present and create a future."--BOOK JACKET.
