Reviews

Socialist Yiddishlands sets the stage for what could be a shift in how scholars think about the relationships among Yiddish, the Cold War, the effects of the Cold War on Jews around the world, the Soviet Bloc countries, and the lived realities of those who actively participated in the development of state socialism.

Jan 05, 2026

While focused on collectors in the late imperial and interwar periods—many of whom were Polish-speaking, wealthy, integrationist, and well-educated—this work reframes the significance of the culture created by Polish Jews of that time in all their linguistic, material, political, and cultural diversity.

Dec 03, 2025

Detective Max Spitzkopf, the Yiddish Sherlock Holmes, is an unstoppable force for good.

Oct 22, 2025

The well-translated articles make for entertaining, and often moving, reading. But they also serve as an introduction to the social and cultural history of life in the Jewish East End.

Sep 10, 2025

As Women on the Yiddish Stage makes clear, women were not peripheral figures but central players in the making of Yiddish cultural life. Their stories, whether told through archival fragments, recovered memoirs, or close readings of performance, call for a more inclusive and accurate understanding—one in which actresses are not merely remembered for their presence onstage, but recognized for their lasting cultural impact.

Jun 30, 2025

We are discovering that the story of Yiddish in Palestine/Israel is vast, complex, and utterly fascinating, and it’s being written not (yet) by a novelist or filmmaker, but by a group of scholars, librarians, archivists, and translators who stitch the narrative together like a patchwork. Gali Drucker Bar-Am’s book—published in Hebrew in 2021 and in English translation in 2024—adds an important chapter to the story.

Jun 26, 2025

Thinking beyond notions of origin, nativity, and possession in language, Henig offers a reflection on the paradoxes of ethnolinguistic nationalism and what it might mean, instead, to linger on the stuttering, nomadic, and ghostly modes of an undead language.

Jun 05, 2025

While not the first, Rubin’s book is among the very few that aim to address the history of the Chabad movement as a whole, placing its major figures in dialogue with one another. Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity does so not in a devotional or ahistorical manner, but by exploring the rebbes’ writings as conscious and strategic efforts to forge a distinct Lubavitch tradition, construct the legitimacy of their leadership, and respond to the complex challenges of modern times.

May 23, 2025

May 19, 2025

May 07, 2025