Endings/Continuings
The end of Yiddish, except as an academic pursuit or as a final nostalgia, is not at all Kafkaesque. Jewish history has many ironies and countless sorrows, as well as a panoply of cultural achievements…
Category: Yiddish
Yiddish Writers
H. Leivick I have often felt that instead of writing my autobiography I would like to write the biography of my poems. I mean, tell the life story of some of my poems… Sholem Aleichem…
First Draft of a Translation
אָ מענטשהייט איך בין אײַער דאַנקבאַר זון יעדער מענטש מײַן טאַטע’ס עלטער איז מײַן טאַטע יעדער פרוי מײַן מאַמע’ס עלטער איז מײַן מאַמע אַלע די…
Things Come and Go
From Lionel Trilling‘s library to mine.
“What Will Become of Yiddish?”
Chava Rosenfarb, Confessions of a Yiddish Writer and Other Essays Edited by Goldie Morgentaler McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019 Scholar and professor Morgentaler has gathered an impressive collection of writings by her mother, Chava Rosenfarb. A…
The Chasm between Them and Us
Kadya Molodovsky, A Jewish Refugee in New York: Rivke Zilberg’s Journal Translated by Anita Norich The accomplished Yiddish writer Molodovsky wrote this novel in serialized form in 1940-41, knowing obviously what was happening at the…
A Gift from Brooke
Earlier this summer I corresponded with Brooke and mentioned I was learning Yiddish. She kindly mailed me the following…
A Gift from Brooke
Earlier this summer I corresponded with Brooke and mentioned I was learning Yiddish. She kindly mailed me the following…
“Born Only Yesterday, and Already She Speaks Like a Perfect Mensch”
12.14.17 Dear Dianne, I think this is the 4th time I’m reading Meshugah. It was originally serialized in the Yiddish Daily Forward. Because I’m reading it with you, and because Hedy is on our minds,…
“If the Messiah Comes, He’ll Come to This Cafeteria in Miami”
Isaac Bashevis Singer, Shadows on the Hudson Translated by Joseph Sherman Like Meshugah, this is another novel translated from the Yiddish and published after Singer’s death. In Shadows I was gripped by the various characters…