Published in the Amsterdam Yiddish Symposium series, this book contains three essays on Yiddish literature from the late nineteenth century until the present day. Nathan Cohen, in ‘The Yiddish Press as Distributor of Literature,’ shows that, besides their tremendous social and political function, the Yiddish daily and periodical press of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a strong cultural agent. Jan Schwarz argues that the novels of Chaim Grade are typical of the work of the post-1945 generation of Yiddish writers in staying close to the inner world of orthodox Jews; as such, they have achieved a canonical status as classics of the Jewish literary imagination, ensconced in their particular linguistic, religious, and literary universe. Kathryn Hellerstein discusses issues related to translating Yiddish poems by women, such as rendering the peculiarly Jewish elements of the language in English.
Contents:
Nathan Cohen: The Yiddish Press as Distributor of Literature;
Jan Schwarz: ‘Better a Jew Without a Beard Than a Beard Without a Jew’: Confrontation and Elegy in the Novels of Chaim Grade;
Kathryn Hellerstein: On the Other Side of the Poem: Translating Yiddish Poems by Women.