Yiddish rules! The year 2018 saw some great highlights in the modern history of Yiddish.
Debra Caplan published her excellent study: Yiddish Empire: the Vilna Troupe, Jewish Theater, and the Art of Itinerancy.
Yiddish theater itself made a huge comeback with the staging of Fiddler on the Roof in an almost universally acclaimed totally Yiddish version. With outstanding actors and a very human approach to the iconic figure of Tevye, this Fiddler could become the classic version. Just as you didn’t need to be Jewish to love Levy’s Rye, theater goers needed no knowledge of Yiddish to appreciate this Fiddler. Supertitles helped, but the acting carried the show with which so many people are already familiar. (See: Tradition or Traditsye, Aug 1, 2018)
The Yiddish Book center in Amherst, MA has continued to rescue Yiddish books and make them accessible. According to the New York Times,” Yiddish is now “proportionately, the most accessible literature on earth.” Programming is available at the Center or online.
Scores of books in Yiddish and about Yiddish have been published recently or will be published into 2019.
Universities teach Yiddish; book clubs read Yiddish writers either in the original or in translation. First published in 1897, The Yiddish Forward now is a monthly magazine but primarily publishes on line. If nothing else, Jews know how to adapt.
Amazing, isn’t it for a language which lost a huge number of its native speakers almost 80 years ago and which to many Americans was the “secret language” of their parents or grandparents.
But its history, its charm and its quality has kept Yiddish alive and brought many of its words into mainstream English.
The Lampert Library has an eclectic collection of books about Yiddish in no particular order:
Found Treasures: stories by Yiddish women writers.
In the Land of Happy Tears: Yiddish tales for modern times (J)
Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse
Songs from the Garden of Eden: book and CD (J)
Michaelson, Too Young for Yiddish (J)
Skye, My Yiddish Vacation (J)
Pinkwater, Beautiful Yetta, the Yiddish Chicken (J)
Gottlieb, Funny It Doesn’t Sound Jewish: how Yiddish songs and synagogue melodies influenced Tin Pan Alley, Broadway and Hollywood.
Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. An alternate history set in Alaska.
Postman, The Yiddish Alphabet Book
Sholem Aleichem, Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories
Lansky, Outwitting History: the amazing adventure of a man who rescued a million Yiddish books.
Leib, Yingl, Tsingl, Khvat
Milne, Vini-der-Pu: a Yiddish translation of Winnie-the-Pooh
Bluestein, Anglish. Yinglish: Yiddish in American life and literature
Weinstein, Yiddish: a nation of words
Roston, The New Joys of Yiddish
- Is It Passover Yet? - Thu, Apr 18, 2024
- MESH Report April 9, 2024 - Thu, Apr 11, 2024
- Guess Who? - Wed, Mar 13, 2024