Inside The Haunting, Erotic Yiddish Poetry of Celia Dropkin
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Forverts Staff May 9, 2017
A version of this post originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts.
Most people associate Yiddish poetry with grandmothers, immigrant workers or the horrors of the Holocaust, if they have associations at all.
What certainly does not come to mind are frank and graphic descriptions of sexual acts. That may soon change thanks to a new documentary, “Burning Off the Page,” which explores the life and work of the Yiddish poet Celia Dropkin, whose haunting and beautiful erotic poems stunned New York’s Yiddish literary world in the 1920’s. Eli Gorn and Bracha Feldman’s film examines how Dropkin’s poems continue to speak to and inspire readers today and how they have been reinterpreted by diverse communities seeking meaning in the Yiddish literary past.
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
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And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
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