The Further Adventures of Menachem-Mendl

The Further Adventures of Menachem-Mendl PDF Author: Sholem Aleichem
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815606772
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Menachem-Mendl is one of Sholem Aleichem's most delightful literary creations, a dreamy optimist who travels to New York and across Eastern Europe in search of an elusive fortune at the approach of World War I. His wife, Sheyne-Sheyndl, and children are left behind in the shtetl of Kasrilevka. Written in 1913 and previously unpublished in the United States, The Further Adventures of Menachem-Mendl consists of Menachem-Mendl's letters home and his wife's often tart replies. Working for Yiddish newspapers, Menachem-Mendl writes his opinions of world events and Jewish problems. Through the eyes of this shrewd smalltown Jew we see events leading to a cataclysmic war, which include his uncannily familiar treatment of conflicts in the Balkans. Menachem-Mendl describes the Zionist Congress in Vienna with Aleichem's inimitable humor, exaggeration, and realism. In her replies to her husband, Sheyne-Sheyndl reminds him that his family grapples with crushing poverty and persecution. Aliza Shevrin's fluid translation captures the idiomatic richness of the original Yiddish and brings Aleichem's vanished culture to vibrant life.

The Further Adventures of Menachem-Mendl

The Further Adventures of Menachem-Mendl PDF Author: Sholem Aleichem
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815606772
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Menachem-Mendl is one of Sholem Aleichem's most delightful literary creations, a dreamy optimist who travels to New York and across Eastern Europe in search of an elusive fortune at the approach of World War I. His wife, Sheyne-Sheyndl, and children are left behind in the shtetl of Kasrilevka. Written in 1913 and previously unpublished in the United States, The Further Adventures of Menachem-Mendl consists of Menachem-Mendl's letters home and his wife's often tart replies. Working for Yiddish newspapers, Menachem-Mendl writes his opinions of world events and Jewish problems. Through the eyes of this shrewd smalltown Jew we see events leading to a cataclysmic war, which include his uncannily familiar treatment of conflicts in the Balkans. Menachem-Mendl describes the Zionist Congress in Vienna with Aleichem's inimitable humor, exaggeration, and realism. In her replies to her husband, Sheyne-Sheyndl reminds him that his family grapples with crushing poverty and persecution. Aliza Shevrin's fluid translation captures the idiomatic richness of the original Yiddish and brings Aleichem's vanished culture to vibrant life.

Jews and Ukrainians in Russia's Literary Borderlands

Jews and Ukrainians in Russia's Literary Borderlands PDF Author: Amelia Glaser
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810127962
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Studies of Eastern European literature have largely confined themselves to a single language, culture, or nationality. In this highly original book, Glaser shows how writers working in Russian, Ukrainian, and Yiddish during much of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century were in intense conversation with one another. The marketplace was both the literal locale at which members of these different societies and cultures interacted with one another and a rich subject for representation in their art. It is commonplace to note the influence of Gogol on Russian literature, but Glaser shows him to have been a profound influence on Ukrainian and Yiddish literature as well. And she shows how Gogol must be understood not only within the context of his adopted city of St. Petersburg but also that of his native Ukraine. As Ukrainian and Yiddish literatures developed over this period, they were shaped by their geographical and cultural position on the margins of the Russian Empire. As distinctive as these writers may seem from one another, they are further illuminated by an appreciation of their common relationship to Russia. Glaser’s book paints a far more complicated portrait than scholars have traditionally allowed of Jewish (particularly Yiddish) literature in the context of Eastern European and Russian culture.

Encyclopedia of Jewish Folklore and Traditions

Encyclopedia of Jewish Folklore and Traditions PDF Author: Raphael Patai
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317471709
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1641

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Book Description
This multicultural reference work on Jewish folklore, legends, customs, and other elements of folklife is the first of its kind.

Kiev, Jewish Metropolis

Kiev, Jewish Metropolis PDF Author: Natan M. Meir
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253222079
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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Book Description
The readmission of some categories of Jews into Kiev in 1859 brought about a rapid rise of the Jewish community in the city. Kiev had a symbolical significance as "the mother of the Russian cities" and was an important religious center, so the massive migration of Jews in it provoked anxiety among the Christians. The authorities and to some extent voluntary associations of Kiev tried to maintain a segregation between the Jews and non-Jews; while attacking Jews for their "isolation", they opposed also Jewish cultural assimilation. Describes the pogrom of 1881 and the bloody pogrom of October 1905. Argues that the pogroms of 1881 in Kiev and elsewhere took place mainly in the areas of new Jewish settlement. The pogromists in Kiev called not so much to "beat the Jews" as to expel them from the city. Dismisses the view that the perpetrators of the pogrom were vagabond workers from central Russia: the role of the locals in the riot was significant. The 1905 pogrom was a by-product of the revolution, in which many Jews took part. The authorities not only were reluctant to stop it (as it was also in 1881), but even encouraged the rioters for violence. Christian neighbors nearly always refused to hide or to protect Jews. Dozens were killed in what the nationalists regarded as a symbolic reconquest of Kiev from "seditionist Jews". Describes also the Beilis case in Kiev, which can be regarded that an anti-Jewish campaign launched by the all-Russian right rather than by Kiev antisemites. The pogroms shattered the hopes of most Jews for peaceful coexistence with non-Jews, but did not stop the Jewish migration to Kiev and their acculturation.

Never Better!

Never Better! PDF Author: Miriam Udel
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472121731
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
It was only when Jewish writers gave up on the lofty Enlightenment ideals of progress and improvement that the Yiddish novel could decisively enter modernity. Animating their fictions were a set of unheroic heroes who struck a precarious balance between sanguinity and irony that author Miriam Udel captures through the phrase “never better.” With this rhetorical homage toward the double-voiced utterances of Sholem Aleichem, Udel gestures at these characters’ insouciant proclamation that things had never been better, and their rueful, even despairing admission that things would probably never get better. The characters defined by this dual consciousness constitute a new kind of protagonist: a distinctively Jewish scapegrace whom Udel denominates the polit or refugee. Cousin to the Golden Age Spanish pícaro, the polit is a socially marginal figure who narrates his own story in discrete episodes, as if stringing beads on a narrative necklace. A deeply unsettled figure, the polit is allergic to sentimentality and even routine domesticity. His sequential misadventures point the way toward the heart of the picaresque, which Jewish authors refashion as a vehicle for modernism—not only in Yiddish, but also in German, Russian, English and Hebrew. Udel draws out the contours of the new Jewish picaresque by contrasting it against the nineteenth-century genre of progress epitomized by the Bildungsroman. While this book is grounded in modern Jewish literature, its implications stretch toward genre studies in connection with modernist fiction more generally. Udel lays out for a diverse readership concepts in the history and theory of the novel while also explicating the relevant particularities of Jewish literary culture. In addressing the literary stylistics of a “minor” modernism, this study illuminates how the adoption of a picaresque sensibility allowed minority authors to write simultaneously within and against the literary traditions of Europe.

Rebirth of a Culture

Rebirth of a Culture PDF Author: Hillary Hope Herzog
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781845455118
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
"Alter 1945, Jewish writing in German was almost unimaginable - and then only in reference to the Shoah. Only in the 1980s, after a period of mourning, silence, and processing of the trauma, did a new Jewish literature evolve in Germany and Austria. This volume focuses on the re-emergence of a lively Jewish cultural scene in the German-speaking countries and the various cultural forms of expression that have developed around it. Topics include current debates such as the emergence of a post-Waldheim Jewish discourse in Austria and Jewish responses to German unification and the Gulf wars. Other significant themes addressed are the memorialization of the Holocaust in Berlin and Vienna, the uses of Kafka in contemporary German literature, and the German and American-Jewish dialogue as representative of both the history of exile and the globalization of postmodern civilization. The volume is enhanced by contributions from some of the most significant representatives of German-Jewish writing today such as Esther Dischereit, Barbara Honigmann, Jeanette Lander, and Doron Rabinovici. The result is a lively dialogue between European and North American scholars and writers that captures the complexity and dynamism of Jewish culture in Germany and Austria at the turn of the twenty-first century."--BOOK JACKET.

In the Shadow of Zion

In the Shadow of Zion PDF Author: Adam Rovner
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479817481
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
From the late nineteenth century through the post-Holocaust era, the world was divided between countries that tried to expel their Jewish populations and those that refused to let them in. The plight of these traumatized refugees inspired numerous proposals for Jewish states. Jews and Christians, authors and adventurers, politicians and playwrights, and rabbis and revolutionaries all worked to carve out autonomous Jewish territories in remote and often hostile locations across the globe. The would-be founding fathers of these imaginary Zions dispatched scientific expeditions to far-flung regions and filed reports on the dream states they planned to create. But only Israel emerged from dream to reality. Israel’s successful foundation has long obscured the fact that eminent Jewish figures, including Zionism’s prophet, Theodor Herzl, seriously considered establishing enclaves beyond the Middle East. In the Shadow of Zion brings to life the amazing true stories of six exotic visions of a Jewish national home outside of the biblical land of Israel. It is the only book to detail the connections between these schemes, which in turn explain the trajectory of modern Zionism. A gripping narrative drawn from archives the world over, In the Shadow of Zion recovers the mostly forgotten history of the Jewish territorialist movement, and the stories of the fascinating but now obscure figures who championed it. Provocative, thoroughly researched, and written to appeal to a broad audience, In the Shadow of Zion offers a timely perspective on Jewish power and powerlessness. Visit the author's website: http://www.adamrovner.com/.

My Suburban Shtetl

My Suburban Shtetl PDF Author: Robert Rand
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815607212
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
A novel about growing up in Skokie, Illinois, home to one of America's largest communities of Jewish Holocaust survivors.

The Walled City

The Walled City PDF Author: Esther David
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815607502
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
This novel traces the rigid circumscribed lives of three generations of women in an extended Jewish family in the walled Indian city of Ahmedabad.

Jonah and Sarah

Jonah and Sarah PDF Author: David Shrayer-Petrov
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 0815607768
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
From the deceptively simple narrative (Apple Cider Vinegar, Hurricane Bob) to the surrealist story (Dismemberers) and the magical tale (Jonah and Sarah and Lanskoy Road), the tempo fluctuates, but throughout, Shrayer-Petrov seamlessly preserves familiar voices. The stories have a genuine feel of the setting and epoch—the Russian stories work as narratives of everyday life, while the American stories offer an accurate sense of an émigré’s alienation. Like all good works of fiction, these stories take on a mythic quality and transcend time and place. Each carries and communicates to the reader an aura of mystery, the enigma of love, and a meeting of the Jewish past and present. Whether he invokes lyrical dialogue, gentle irony, or sharp polemical discourse, Shrayer-Petrov shows that he is a powerful presence in Russian and Jewish literature. For those interested in fiction about new immigrants to America or in the psychology of Jews in the two decades before the Soviet Union’s collapse, this collection is a must read.