  | Book Details Title: How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish |
Book DescriptionReview “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…. 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“In addition to ‘radical, dangerous and sexy,’ Stavans and Lambert also characterize Yiddish as ‘sweet, generous and full of life.’ This fine volume proves their point and serves both as an elegy for voices lost and an impetus for Yiddishkeit discovery.” — Liz Spikol, Jewish Exponent Read more About the Author Ilan Stavans is the Publisher of Restless Books and the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities, Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. His books include On Borrowed Words, Spanglish, Dictionary Days, The Disappearance, and A Critic’s Journey. He has edited The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature, the three-volume set Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories, The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, among dozens of other volumes. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Chile’s Presidential Medal, the International Latino Book Award, and the Jewish Book Award. Stavans’s work, translated into twenty languages, has been adapted to the stage and screen. A cofounder of the Great Books Summer Program at Amherst, Stanford, Chicago, Oxford, and Dublin, he is the host of the NPR podcast “In Contrast.”Josh Lambert is the academic director of the Yiddish Book Center and visiting assistant professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He’s the author of American Jewish Fiction: A JPS Guide (2009) and Unclean Lips: Obscenity, Jews, and American Culture (2014), which received a Jordan Schnitzer Book Award from the Association of Jewish Studies and a Canadian Jewish Book Award. His reviews and essays have been published by the New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Haaretz, Tablet, the Forward, New England Public Radio, and many other publications. Read more Customers Review:Yiddish, a language generated by European Jews many centuries ago, has spread with the diaspora of its speakers from Europe, but its vitality still remains. Within this impressive anthology of Yiddish publications from the early 1900’s to the present, the reader is exposed to an array of expressive styles, including stories, memoirs, poetry, graphic art, cartoons, plays, essays, and even traditional mouthwatering recipes. Familiar names such as I. B. Singer, Michael Chabon, Sholem Asch, Cynthia Ozick, and surprisingly Sophie Tucker along with so many others leave samples of their contributions to this collection. Some of the reading is poignant, reflecting back to the old familiar shtetl of Europe which is contrasted with the pains of immigration to the new country; much is heart warming in detailing the warmth of human relationships, some selections play on the ironic humor of life, but all the readings engage attention and focus on analysis of the tie between Yiddish and our culture. Yiddish has not only penetrated the nation’s lexicon, but it is the glue that connects its adherents from Europe throughout North and South America as well as Cuba. One can start reading in any section of the volume and just roam through the pages to feel the essence and influence of Yiddish. | |
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