Mikhail Krutikov is the Preston R. Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan and a regular contributor to the Forward. You can reach him at [email protected].
Mikhail Krutikov
By Mikhail Krutikov
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Yiddish World How Socialist Zionists tried to fit into the new Soviet system
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Until recently, scholars considered the history of the Zionist movement in the Soviet Union solely a history of repression. But nearly 2,000 pages of archival documents provide a more multifaceted and even suspenseful picture of relations between Zionist organizations and Soviet authorities during the first decade after…
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Yiddish World Academic Conference on Jewish Ghosts
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. When I teach my course on Eastern-European Jewish culture at the University of Michigan, I always ask my students who graduated from Jewish day schools: “What were you taught about the world to come, ghosts, spirits and demons?” I always receive the same reply: “Jews don’t believe…
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Yiddish World How Elie Wiesel Became A Surrogate Father For Children Of Survivors
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Elie Wiesel’s novel “Night,” the original Yiddish title of which translated to “And the World Remained Silent,” is the single best-known book about the Holocaust. It’s studied today in American schools, and for many readers it’s the only source they have on Holocaust history. But in the…
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Yiddish World Five Centuries of Yiddish Poetry, Written by Women
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. A remarkable history of women’s poetry in Yiddish was recently published by Joanna Lisek, a scholar of Polish literature. The book is currently available only in its native Polish, but it’s imperative that it be translated into English as well. The monograph, “Kol Ishe: The Voice of…
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Culture After WWII, Her Stories Gave New Life To A Shattered Jewish World
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The story of the Jews during the Holocaust era is usually divided into that of two zones: the Jewish zone, which includes the ghettos and the camps under the Germans and their allies, and the “free” zone, which includes the territories that were free of Nazi domination….
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Culture How Yiddish Education Got Its Start In America, From Zionism To Socialism
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Are Jews a people or a religious community? This reductive question has been debated for more than two centuries, since the time of the Jewish Enlightenment. Its stakes are particularly high with regard to Jewish education. Religious subjects have an old and fixed place in the Jewish…
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Culture A Transgressive, Brilliant Leftist Satirist’s Work Finds New Life In English
The works of Yiddish writer and satirist Moyshe Nadir in English translation are gaining a wider audience these days. The newest addition to this growing collection is Nadir’s acerbic comic play “Messiah in America,” translated by Michael Shapiro and published by Farlag. The Yiddish word farlag actually means publishing house. Both the selection of the…
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Yiddish World How The Café Reinvented Jewish Culture
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Jewish literature is full of references to cafés, like the Café Fanconi in Odessa described by Sholem Aleichem’s hapless hero, Menachem Mendl, or the Café Royale on the Lower East Side, frequented by Jewish socialists, writers and artists. These literary descriptions of café settings are often read…
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