There can be no greater left-wing yichis than being named after Sacco and Vanzetti. The Canadian Jewish cultural historian Sacvan Bercovitch, who died on December 9 at age 81, was born to Russian Jewish parents who cherished a revolutionary ideal. In his “Rites of Assent,”, Bercovitch explained that he was drawn to America’s Puritans because…
● Memories and Scenes: Shtetl, Childhood, Writers By Jacob Dinezon Translated from the Yiddish by Tina Lunson Jewish Storyteller Press, 240 pages, $19.95 In “Apocalypse,” a short story by Yiddish writer Jacob Dinezon, three elderly Jews get to talking about the concept of Rothschild, and about whether such a person actually exists. “In reality there…
Bel Kaufman, who died on July 25 at 103, gave the impression she might live forever. During lunch on August 31, 2012 at her favorite eatery Demarchelier, she told me: “I have just stepped into the future.” Her two novels, “Up the Down Staircase” (which was made into an award-winning film) and “Love, Etc.” were…
Bel Kaufman, who has died on July 25 at the age of 103, once told an audience at Iona College in 2011: “You’re laughing. It’s a very good sound, the sound of survival.” Born Bella Kaufman in 1911, she is best known as author of the 1965 bestseller “Up the Down Staircase” a fictionalized version…
Writing in Tongues: Translating Yiddish in the 20th Century By Anita Norich University of Washington Press, 160 pages, $30 Translators are villains, lechers, traitors. Like the spinster who translates Yankel Ostrover’s stories in Cynthia Ozick’s “Envy; or, Yiddish in America,” they are vain. “Who has read James Joyce, Ostrover or I?” she seethes. “I didn’t…
Sholem Alechem, Oklahoma! The name of an oil field several miles out of Ardmore, Okla., is a puzzle to local residents. Some believe that it must commemorate a Native American site. After all, Oklahoma was once Indian Territory, and it is still flush with Native American reservations and local names, from Shawnee Twin Lakes to…
The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem: The Remarkable Life and Afterlife of the Man Who Created Tevye By Jeremy Dauber Schocken, 464 pages, $28.95 Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ By Alisa Solomon Metropolitan Books, 448 pages, $32.00 Like most Jews of my generation, I saw “Fiddler on the Roof” before…
Carol Russak writes from San Francisco: “My mother, who was from a small town near Chernovitz, used to use the expression daber nisht when she didn’t want to talk about a subject. I know that this means ‘Don’t talk,’ a combination of Hebrew daber and Yiddish nisht. Have you ever come across this expression?” I…
דער שרײַבער ברוך האַגער איז צווישן די זעלטענע שרײַבער, וואָס גיבן זיך אָפּ מיט דער שפּראַך פֿון דער חסידישער מעשׂה אויף ייִדיש.
אויף לשון־קודש קען „עולם“ באַטײַטן „אייביקייט“. הייסט אַ בית־עולם דאָס אָרט, וווּ מע בלײַבט אויף אייביק.
אין דער גאָלדענער מדינה האָבן די שידוך־מינהגים פֿון דער אַלטער היים אויסגעזען מאָדנע, און אַפֿילו אַנטי־דעמאָקראַטיש
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