Yiddish South of the Border

Yiddish South of the Border PDF Author: Alan Astro
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 0826363296
Category : Jews
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Alan Astro's pioneering collection of Latin American Yiddish writings translated into English includes works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Uruguay, Colombia, and Cuba. Literature has always served as a refuge for Yiddish speakers, and the Yiddish literature of Latin America reflects the writers' assertions of their political rights. Stories depicting working-class life in Buenos Aires by José Rabinovich and Samuel Rollansky evoke the works of Abraham Cahan and Henry Roth. Rosa Palatnik in Rio de Janeiro, Abraham Weisbaum in Mexico City, José Goldchain in Santiago de Chile, and Salomón Zytner in Montevideo satirize bourgeois aspirations among Jews distancing themselves from their modest backgrounds--one of Philip Roth's major themes. Abraham Josef Dubelman and Aaron Zeitlin in Cuba ponder possible links to the crypto-Jews who came to the New World to escape the Inquisition. Themes of identity permeate Latin American Yiddish writing, and the works featured in this anthology provide a glimpse into Jewish life and culture throughout Latin America. As Ilan Stavans notes in the introduction, "This anthology documents that Yiddish--or, in one of its Spanish spellings, idish--also flourished in Latin America, leaving behind powerfully artistic testaments."

Yiddish South of the Border

Yiddish South of the Border PDF Author: Alan Astro
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 0826363296
Category : Jews
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Alan Astro's pioneering collection of Latin American Yiddish writings translated into English includes works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Uruguay, Colombia, and Cuba. Literature has always served as a refuge for Yiddish speakers, and the Yiddish literature of Latin America reflects the writers' assertions of their political rights. Stories depicting working-class life in Buenos Aires by José Rabinovich and Samuel Rollansky evoke the works of Abraham Cahan and Henry Roth. Rosa Palatnik in Rio de Janeiro, Abraham Weisbaum in Mexico City, José Goldchain in Santiago de Chile, and Salomón Zytner in Montevideo satirize bourgeois aspirations among Jews distancing themselves from their modest backgrounds--one of Philip Roth's major themes. Abraham Josef Dubelman and Aaron Zeitlin in Cuba ponder possible links to the crypto-Jews who came to the New World to escape the Inquisition. Themes of identity permeate Latin American Yiddish writing, and the works featured in this anthology provide a glimpse into Jewish life and culture throughout Latin America. As Ilan Stavans notes in the introduction, "This anthology documents that Yiddish--or, in one of its Spanish spellings, idish--also flourished in Latin America, leaving behind powerfully artistic testaments."

Singer's Typewriter and Mine

Singer's Typewriter and Mine PDF Author: Ilan Stavans
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803271468
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
A cultural critic of extraordinary erudition, encyclopedic knowledge, and boundless curiosity, Ilan Stavans, an Ashkenazic Jew who grew up in Mexico, negotiates wildly varied topics as effortlessly and deftly as he manages the multiple perspectives of a dual national, religious, and ethnic identity. In Singer’s Typewriter and Mine, a follow-up to The Inveterate Dreamer (Nebraska, 2001), Stavans interweaves his own experience with that of other Jewish writers and thinkers, past and present, to explore modern Jewish culture across the boundaries of language and nation. Juxtaposing the personal and the analytical, these essays and conversations take up the oeuvres of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Mario Vargas Llosa, translation and God’s language, storytelling as midrash, anti-Semitism in Hispanic America, Yiddish and Sephardic literatures, the connection between humor and terror, impostors as cultural agents, the creators of the King James Bible, and the encounter between Jewish and Latino civilizations, to name but a few of Stavans’s topics here. Funny, engaging, and provocative, this collection continues Stavans’s project of opening new vistas in our cross-cultural understanding of language, literature, and life.

How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish

How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish PDF Author: Ilan Stavans
Publisher: Restless Books
ISBN: 1632062631
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 578

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Book Description
A momentous and diverse anthology of the influences and inspirations of Yiddish voices in America—radical, dangerous, and seductive, but also sweet, generous, and full of life—edited by award-winning authors and scholars Ilan Stavans and Josh Lambert. Is it possible to conceive of the American diet without bagels? Or Star Trek without Mr. Spock? Are the creatures in Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are based on Holocaust survivors? And how has Yiddish, a language without a country, influenced Hollywood? These and other questions are explored in this stunning and rich anthology of the interplay of Yiddish and American culture, edited by award-winning authors and scholars Ilan Stavans and Josh Lambert. It starts with the arrival of Ashkenazi immigrants to New York City’s Lower East Side and follows Yiddish as it moves into Hollywood, Broadway, literature, politics, and resistance. We take deep dives into cuisine, language, popular culture, and even Yiddish in the other Americas, including Canada, Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, and Colombia. The book presents a bountiful menu of genres: essays, memoir, song, letters, poems, recipes, cartoons, conversations, and much more. Authors include Nobel Prize–winner Isaac Bashevis Singer and luminaries such as Grace Paley, Cynthia Ozick, Chaim Grade, Michael Chabon, Abraham Cahan, Sophie Tucker, Blume Lempel, Irving Howe, Paula Vogel, and Liana Finck. Readers will laugh and cry as they delve into personal stories of assimilation and learn about people from a diverse variety of backgrounds, Jewish and not, who have made the language their own. The Yiddish saying states: Der mentsh trakht un got lakht. Man plans and God laughs. How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish illustrates how those plans are full of zest, dignity, and tremendous humanity. Most of all, the book shows us that Yiddish, far from being an endangered language, is more vibrant than ever. Praise for How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish: “A wide-ranging, eclectic anthology of work by Yiddish writers. Stavans and Yiddish Book Center academic director Lambert have assembled an impressive collection of essays, fiction, drama, memoir, poetry, cartoons, and interviews, all showing how ‘Yiddish is so deeply woven into the fabric of the United States that it can sometimes be difficult to recognize how much it has transformed the world we live in today.’... Among all these are some stunners—e.g., ‘Oedipus in Brooklyn,’ a story by Blume Lempel (1907-1999) that begins with the line, ‘Sylvia was no Jocasta.’ Emma Goldman (1869-1940) writes fiercely about marriage, which she compares to an ‘iron yoke.’ In a poem about Coney Island, Victor Packer (1897-1958) writes, ‘Beauty and crudity / Go hand in hand and / Launch a united front / Right there are on the sand.’ [Cynthia] Ozick (b. 1928) compares Sholem Aleichem to Dickens, Twain, and Will Rogers. ‘He was a popular presence, and stupendously so. His lectures and readings were mobbed; he was a household friend; he was cherished as a family valuable.’ For readers unfamiliar with Yiddish writing, a revelation; for readers and aficionados of the language, a treasure.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review “For many people, this will be a poignant, surprising, and engrossing introduction to the epic survival story of a singular culture, requiring no foreknowledge of Yiddish, by two of the field's luminaries. For those of us whose grandparents spoke and understood, and whose parents only understood—no need to explain that we do neither—this book is the way back to a language that once meant everything.” —Boris Fishman, author of A Replacement Life and Savage Feast “This volume is not a chronological exploration of the Yiddish language in America. Instead, the editors offer portions of some of the major works of Yiddish literature, poetry, comics, and political thought, by writers including Isaac Bashevis Singer, Chaim Grade, Cynthia Ozick, and Sophie Tucker, among others. A delightful chapter concentrates on culinary offerings with some recipes included. Finally, a fascinating chapter focuses on the influence of Yiddish in Canada, Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, and Columbia, offering a glimpse of Yiddishkeit outside Eurocentric views. VERDICT A wonderful compilation sure to please new and old lovers of Yiddish culture, Jewish history, and linguistics.” —Library Journal “Who could resist the lure of a jar of kosher dills on a bright yellow book cover? Not I. In addition to the pickles what the cover promised was a certainty that the work represented on its pages, between essays, fiction, poems, cartoons, etc., would be co-chosen by the indefatigable Ilan Stavans, whose work I have followed for years. Divided into six parts, starting with ‘Politics and Possibilities’ and ending with ‘The Other Americas,’ one cannot help but be amazed by the breadth of Yiddish documents that have been found and preserved from the past, while marveling at the more contemporary writers who have added richness and are keeping Yiddish alive. This book is utterly fascinating and a true cultural artifact.” —Lucy Kogler, Literary Hub “Stavans and Lambert, both accomplished scholars, aspire to something far more substantial than the Yiddishisms and Jewish jokes that have come to be associated with Yiddishkayt in American pop culture…. [T]he reader is offered an astonishingly rich and diverse selection of poems, stories, memoirs, essays, plays, letters, conversations, recipes and reminiscences, as well as drawings, cartoons and posters by Yiddish artists, each one refracting a different point of view and a different point of light.” —Jonathan Kirsch, Jewish Journal

Handbook of Jewish Languages

Handbook of Jewish Languages PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004359540
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 780

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Book Description
This Handbook of Jewish Languages is an introduction to the many languages used by Jews throughout history, including Yiddish, Judezmo (Ladino) , and Jewish varieties of Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, Berber, English, French, Georgian, Greek, Hungarian, Iranian, Italian, Latin American Spanish, Malayalam, Occitan (Provençal), Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Syriac, Turkic (Karaim and Krymchak), Turkish, and more. Chapters include historical and linguistic descriptions of each language, an overview of primary and secondary literature, and comprehensive bibliographies to aid further research. Many chapters also contain sample texts and images. This book is an unparalleled resource for anyone interested in Jewish languages, and will also be very useful for historical linguists, dialectologists, and scholars and students of minority or endangered languages. This paperback edition has been updated to include dozens of additional bibliographic references.

Teaching Jewish American Literature

Teaching Jewish American Literature PDF Author: Roberta Rosenberg
Publisher: Modern Language Association
ISBN: 1603294465
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
A multilingual, transnational literary tradition, Jewish American writing has long explored questions of personal identity and national boundaries. These questions can engage students in literature, writing, or religion; at Jewish, Christian, or secular schools; and in or outside the United States. This volume takes an expansive view of Jewish American literature, beginning with writing from the earliest colonies in the Americas and continuing to contemporary Soviet-born authors in the United States, including works that engage deeply with religious concepts and others that embrace assimilation. It invites readers to rethink the nature of American multiculturalism, suggests pairings of Jewish American texts with other ethnic American literatures, and examines the workings of whiteness and privilege. Contributors offer varied perspectives on classic texts such as Yekl, Bread Givers, and "Goodbye, Columbus," along with approaches to interdisciplinary topics including humor, graphic novels, and musical theater. The volume concludes with an extensive resources section.

The Cambridge History of Jewish American Literature

The Cambridge History of Jewish American Literature PDF Author: Hana Wirth-Nesher
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316395340
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 884

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Book Description
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.

The New Jewish American Literary Studies

The New Jewish American Literary Studies PDF Author: Victoria Aarons
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110842628X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Introduces readers to the new perspectives, approaches and interpretive possibilities in Jewish American literature that emerged in the twenty-first Century.

Jewish Literatures in Spanish and Portuguese

Jewish Literatures in Spanish and Portuguese PDF Author: Ruth Fine
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110561115
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 697

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Book Description
This volume offers a thorough introduction to Jewish world literatures in Spanish and Portuguese, which not only addresses the coexistence of cultures, but also the functions of a literary and linguistic space of negotiation in this context. From the Middle Ages to present day, the compendium explores the main Jewish chapters within Spanish- and Portuguese-language world literature, whether from Europe, Latin America, or other parts of the world. No comprehensive survey of this area has been undertaken so far. Yet only a broad focus of this kind can show how diasporic Jewish literatures have been (and are ) – while closely tied to their own traditions – deeply intertwined with local and global literary developments; and how the aesthetic praxis they introduced played a decisive, formative role in the history of literature. With this epistemic claim, the volume aims at steering clear of isolationist approaches to Jewish literatures.

The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 8

The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 8 PDF Author: Todd M. Endelman
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300135521
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1384

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Book Description
The eighth volume in a landmark series, this anthology of Jewish culture and civilization encompasses the period between the world wars An anthology of Jewish culture between the world wars, the editors' selections convey the variety, breadth, and depth of Jewish creativity in those tempestuous decades. Despite--or perhaps because of--external threats, Jews fought vigorously over religion, politics, migration, and their own relation to the state and to one another. The texts, translated from many languages, span a wide range of politics, culture, literature, and art. This collection examines what was simultaneously a tense and innovative period in modern Jewish history.

Translation as Home

Translation as Home PDF Author: Ilan Stavans
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487548079
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
Translation as Home is a collection of autobiographical essays by Ilan Stavans that eloquently and unequivocally make the case that translation is not only a career, but a way of life. Born in Mexico City, Ilan Stavans is an essayist, anthologist, literary scholar, translator, and editor. Stavans has changed languages at various points in his life: from Yiddish to Spanish to Hebrew and English. A controversial public intellectual, he is the world’s authority on hybrid languages and on the history of dictionaries. His influential studies on Spanglish have redefined many fields of study, and he has become an international authority on translation as a mechanism of survival. This collection deals with Stavans’s three selves: Mexican, Jewish, and American. The volume presents his recent essays, some previously unpublished, addressing the themes of language, identity, and translation and emphasizing his work in Latin American and Jewish studies. It also features conversations between Stavans and writers, educators, and translators, including Regina Galasso, the author of the introduction and editor of the volume.