DOCSLIB.ORG

Tikvah Online Courses 2018-2019 Courses.Tikvahfund.Org Fall-Winter Courses Available 2017-2018 Now

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Tikvah Online Courses 2018-2019 Courses.Tikvahfund.Org Fall-Winter Courses Available 2017-2018 Now TIKVAH ONLINE COURSES 2018-2019 COURSES.TIKVAHFUND.ORG FALL-WINTER COURSES AVAILABLE 2017-2018 NOW Daniel Deronda: A Zionist Masterpiece Ruth Wisse Decades before Herzl, George Eliot wrote Daniel Deronda, her great novel of Jewish nationalism. Explore this masterpiece with Harvard Professor Ruth Wisse. here is simply no better book to begin thinking through the imperatives for a national Jewish home than TDaniel Deronda. But it would be a mistake to think the book is simply an argument for a Jewish state in the form of a novel. It is at least as much about the nature of England and the outlook for its future. Some English readers subordinated the importance of the Jewish sections of the novel to the story of English-born Gwendolen Harleth and the issues surrounding her maturation. In fact, Eliot interwove the two plots to demonstrate the interrelated fate of the Jews and the English. She believed that English attitudes toward the Jews reflected and determined the kind of nation England was to be. From her personal experience as a lapsed Christian, George Eliot recognized that modern forces were destabilizing society without necessarily showing citizens how to manage the transformation. If a superior novel can serve as guide to the perplexed, here we have a whole education in a single volume, exploring the strengths and vulnerabilities of English liberalism, the blessings and burdens of love, marriage, and family life, the influences of memory and identity, the manners and mores of a decaying aristocratic culture, and the spir- itual qualities needed for cultural renewal. It is a rare pleasure to be in the hands of an author with so much appreciation for the variety of human experience and such a gift for bringing it together in a single book. This online course is guided by preeminent teacher and scholar Ruth Wisse, recently retired from her po- sition as Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University and currently the Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Tikvah Fund. Her many books include The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey Through Literature and Culture, Jews and Power, and No Joke: Making Jewish Humor. FALL-WINTER COURSES 2017-2018 AVAILABLE NOW COURSES.TIKVAHFUND.ORG Jewish Ideas and the American Founders Rabbi Meir Soloveichik Join Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik as he explores the life and legacy of Jonas Phillips, the first truly American Jew, and sheds light on the Jewish ideas that inspired America’s Founding Fathers. ombining history with theology and politics, this course examines the Jewish contributions to the early Crepublic by tracing the life of one remarkable Jewish family. When Jonas Phillips landed on the coast of South Carolina, a Jewish immigrant from the Old World looking for opportunity, he arrived as an indentured servant to another Jewish merchant. After earning his freedom, he went north, married in New York, settled in Philadelphia, created a large family, became a wealthy man, and throughout his life worked to help the new American nation realize its boldest and most promising ideals. Jonas Phillips was a religious Jew and an American patriot, and his life is a testament to the Jewish significance of the uniquely American tradition of religious freedom. His story and the stories of his children orient us toward an understanding of American politics, culture, and law that combines modern and biblical ideals: contract with covenant, faith with freedom, and equality with pluralism. The Phillips family helps us to see just what makes America so unique in Jewish and world history—what is worth protecting, worth celebrating, worth bequeath- ing to our children. Throughout “Jewish Ideas and the American Founders,” Rabbi Soloveichik invites us to ask if America is prepared to stay true to the legacy of Jonas Phillips and keep alive the ideals that make America exceptional. Rabbi Dr. Meir Y. Soloveichik is director of the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University and the rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel, the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. His essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, First Things, Azure, Tradi- tion, and the Torah U-Madda Journal. This online course is sponsored by Allen K. Schwartz, in memory of his wife, Barbara R. Schwartz, and in tribute to all Jewish Americans, both strangers and neighbors. It is also sponsored by the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University. COURSES.TIKVAHFUND.ORG AVAILABLE NOW Theodor Herzl: The Birth of Political Zionism Daniel Polisar Daniel Polisar, one of Israel’s leading experts on Herzl, examines Herzl’s innovative states- manship and visionary leadership. olitical ideas—no matter how great—require determination, vision, and the will of great leaders if they Pare to influence and order the lives of men. The founding fathers of the State of Israel held the big ideas of Jewish history together with the prudential judgment, executive energy, diplomatic savvy, and military strategy they needed to resurrect the Third Jewish Commonwealth in the Land of Israel. From Ze’ev Jabotin- sky to David Ben Gurion to modern Israeli leaders like Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres, the lives and strategic insights of great Jewish political leaders have much to teach us. This course’s focus is on the life and career of Theodor Herzl. With little institutional support, with virtually no resources or political leverage, the sheer force of Herzl’s writing and will carried him to sit across the negoti- ating table from kings and emperors, arguing for the free sovereignty of the Jewish people. How did Herzl deal with the challenges that confronted him from within and from without the Jewish world? What strategies did he pursue, what calculations did he make, how did he learn from his failures and how did he think about parlaying successes? What enduring lessons can we learn from Herzl’s campaign to lay the groundwork for the Jewish State? Shalem College co-founder and executive vice president Daniel Polisar leads us in an examination of Theo- dor Herzl’s Zionist statesmanship, helping us to relive the arguments and to confront the fateful moments of decision of early Zionist history. COMING SOON COURSES.TIKVAHFUND.ORG Majesty and Humility: The Life, Legacy, and Thought of Joseph B. Soloveitchik Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter November 2018 In this in-depth exploration of Rabbi Soloveitchik’s life and thought, Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter shares personal and intimate reflections on the man who was his own mentor and guide. n his life, his leadership, and his legacy, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik straddled different worlds. Born into Ia dynasty of great Lithuanian rabbinic scholars, Rabbi Soloveitchik’s horizons were shaped by Jewish learn- ing and masterful Talmudic erudition. He also threw himself into the world of Western philosophy, earning a doctorate from the University of Berlin and nursing philosophical interests throughout the rest of his life. Born at the dawn of the twentieth century in the outskirts of the Russian Empire, Rabbi Soloveitchik moved to America where he revolutionized Jewish education, founded the Maimonides School in Boston, and was for decades the beating heart of Yeshiva University’s mission to pursue Torah wisdom alongside secular knowl- edge. Along the way, Rabbi Soloveitchik became the twentieth century’s most important American orthodox writer and thinker. Through his works of theology and philosophy, Rabbi Soloveitchik—known reverently as “The Rav”—articu- lates a vision of the modern Jew who lives the tension between faithful obedience to the inherited way of life that has sustained the Jewish people for so many generations, and at the same time who proudly engages the fullness of the modern world. Join us in this online study of Rabbi Soloveitchik’s writing, leadership, and complex personality. COURSES.TIKVAHFUND.ORG COMING SOON The Meaning of Jewish Nationalism Yoram Hazony January 2019 Israeli political philosopher, author, and Herzl Institute president Yoram Hazony examines the biblical origins of the independent Jewish national state. or thousands of years, the Jewish people has pursued a unique course among the nations. The Hebrew Bible Fchallenged the imperial order of the ancient world with a new political theory and a new theology. In this course, Israeli philosopher and author Yoram Hazony examines the biblical origins of the independent Jewish national state, the later development of this political concept in Protestant Europe and America, and its deployment by the Zionist movement that created the state of Israel. The course seeks answers to crucial questions surrounding Jewish nationalism both in antiquity and in our own time, including: What was unique about the biblical political concept of the independent Jewish national kingdom, and what purposes was it intended to serve within the context of the non-Israelite political thought of the ancient world? How did the Jewish tradition of national thinking shape the Christian political thought that gave rise to the modern world, and how did it fail to? Does the political founding of the modern State of Israel succeed as an inheritance of classical Jewish political thought in the writings and work of figures such as Theodor Herzl and David Ben-Gurion? And crucially, where does this idea of a Jewish state stand with respect to political right and wrong in today’s world of often quite contrary moral and political ideas? Can this ancient biblical dream still be meaningful for us in our own time, as Jews and as human beings? Yoram Hazony is president of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem, and the founder and former head of the Shalem Cen- ter in Jerusalem, a research institute that conducted nearly two decades of pioneering work in the fields of philoso- phy, political theory, Bible, Talmud, Jewish and Zionist history, Middle East studies, and archaeology.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Global Form and Fantasy in Yiddish Literary Culture: Visions from Mexico City and Buenos Aires
    Global Form and Fantasy in Yiddish Literary Culture: Visions from Mexico City and Buenos Aires by William Gertz Runyan A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Comparative Literature) in the University of Michigan 2019 Doctoral Committee: Professor Mikhail Krutikov, Chair Professor Tomoko Masuzawa Professor Anita Norich Professor Mauricio Tenorio Trillo, University of Chicago William Gertz Runyan [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3955-1574 © William Gertz Runyan 2019 Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to my dissertation committee members Tomoko Masuzawa, Anita Norich, Mauricio Tenorio and foremost Misha Krutikov. I also wish to thank: The Department of Comparative Literature, the Jean and Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies and the Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan for providing the frameworks and the resources to complete this research. The Social Science Research Council for the International Dissertation Research Fellowship that enabled my work in Mexico City and Buenos Aires. Tamara Gleason Freidberg for our readings and exchanges in Coyoacán and beyond. Margo and Susana Glantz for speaking with me about their father. Michael Pifer for the writing sessions and always illuminating observations. Jason Wagner for the vegetables and the conversations about Yiddish poetry. Carrie Wood for her expert note taking and friendship. Suphak Chawla, Amr Kamal, Başak Çandar, Chris Meade, Olga Greco, Shira Schwartz and Sara Garibova for providing a sense of community. Leyenkrayz regulars past and present for the lively readings over the years. This dissertation would not have come to fruition without the support of my family, not least my mother who assisted with formatting.
    [Show full text]
  • The Jews Who Saved Monticello ­ WSJ
    4/27/2017 The Jews Who Saved Monticello ­ WSJ This copy is for your personal, non­commercial use only. To order presentation­ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the­jews­who­saved­monticello­1493330922 OPINION | COMMENTARY | HOUSES OF WORSHIP THE JEWS WHO SAVED MONTICELLO Thomas Jefferson’s home lay in ruin until Uriah Phillips Levy stepped in to help. By Meir Soloveichik April 27, 2017 6:08 p.m. ET Thomas Jefferson is buried at Monticello, his estate in Charlottesville, Va. The exact spot is marked by an obelisk bearing the date of his death: July 4, 1826—50 years to the day after the Second Continental Congress declared independence. Also close to the home lies a grave belonging to Rachel Phillips Levy. According to the inscription, she died on the 7 of Iyar, 5591, following a calendar used by traditional Jews. How did a Jewish grave end up in Monticello? The answer lies in the history of a family whose own story is every bit as American as that of Jefferson himself. In 1776 a Jewish patriot named Jonas Phillips fled to Philadelphia from New York with the arrival of the British fleet. A decade later, he was well-regarded in his new city, and his daughter Rachel was set to marry a Jewish gentleman named Levy. –– ADVERTISEMENT –– Benjamin Rush —a famous physician, signatory of the Declaration of Independence, and friend to Jefferson—attended the wedding. That Phillips had invited a prominent gentile to a Jewish ceremony, an act unthinkable almost anywhere else at the time, is a sign of the extraordinary freedom Jews had found in this new land.
    [Show full text]
  • SA-SIG-Newsletter June 2005
    S. A. SIG http://www.jewishgen.org/SAfrica/ Editor: Bubbles Segall [email protected] Southern African Jewish Genealogy Special Interest Group Newsletter Vol. 6, Issue 1 September 2005 In this Issue President’s Message – Saul Issroff 2 Editorial – Bubbles Segall 3 Meeting of the SA-SIG at the Las Vegas 2005 Symposium – Roy Ogus 4 SA-SIG Treasurer’s Report – Mike Getz 6 The Lost and Found Family – Sue and Elliot Axel 7 Plungyan of yesterday and Plunge today – Abel Levitt 10 19,234,000,000,000,000 bytes – Gary Mokotoff 13 Memories of Habonim in Port Elizabeth during the Thirties – Phyllis Sachar 14 Mendele Mocher Sforim – Manfred Schwartz 14 Zadok and Sara Bluma Zilber – Dov Sidelsky 17 © 2005 SA-SIG. All articles are copyright and are not to be copied or reprinted without the permission of the author. The contents of the articles contain the opinions of the authors and do not reflect those of the Editor, or of the members of the SA-SIG Board. The Editor has the right to accept or reject any material submitted, or edit as might be appropriate. PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE My grandson's imminent bar mitzvah in New York The Southern Africa Jewish has focussed me on the sorts of life milestone events Genealogy Special Interest Group where we have little or no records from past (SA-SIG) generations. The Southern Africa Jewish Genealogy Special Although we genealogists are adept at getting birth, Interest Group (SA-SIG) was created to provide a marriage, and death records, we seldom see records forum for a free exchange of ideas, research tips, and of a bris milah, a pidyon haben, a bat or bar information of interest to those researching Jewish mitzvah.
    [Show full text]
  • Tikvah Online Courses Courses.Tikvahfund.Org 2018-2019 Courses.Tikvahfund.Org Fall-Winter Courses Available 2017-2018 Now
    TIKVAH ONLINE COURSES COURSES.TIKVAHFUND.ORG 2018-2019 COURSES.TIKVAHFUND.ORG FALL-WINTER COURSES AVAILABLE 2017-2018 NOW Daniel Deronda: A Zionist Masterpiece Ruth Wisse Decades before Herzl, George Eliot wrote Daniel Deronda, her great novel of Jewish nationalism. Explore this masterpiece with Harvard Professor Ruth Wisse. here is simply no better book to begin thinking through the imperatives for a national Jewish home than TDaniel Deronda. But it would be a mistake to think the book is simply an argument for a Jewish state in the form of a novel. It is at least as much about the nature of England and the outlook for its future. Some English readers subordinated the importance of the Jewish sections of the novel to the story of English-born Gwendolen Harleth and the issues surrounding her maturation. In fact, Eliot interwove the two plots to demonstrate the interrelated fate of the Jews and the English. She believed that English attitudes toward the Jews reflected and determined the kind of nation England was to be. From her personal experience as a lapsed Christian, George Eliot recognized that modern forces were destabilizing society without necessarily showing citizens how to manage the transformation. If a superior novel can serve as guide to the perplexed, here we have a whole education in a single volume, exploring the strengths and vulnerabilities of English liberalism, the blessings and burdens of love, marriage, and family life, the influences of memory and identity, the manners and mores of a decaying aristocratic culture, and the spir- itual qualities needed for cultural renewal.
    [Show full text]
  • Court Won't Bar Left-Wing Activists Ezra Nawi, Guy Butavia from West Bank
    4 Friday, January 29, 2016 | Haaretz in which the troops of Rank & File the Australian Mounted Division played a decisive Court won’t bar left-wing activists role, and so he’s “delighted SECOND-HAND SHOP FOR that we can pay tribute to ETHIOPIAN IMMIGRANTS: this important event by A new second-hand shop screening the classic film, Ezra Nawi, Guy Butavia from West Bank has begun serving the new ‘The Lighthorsemen.’” The immigrants in Mevasseret films will be screened at the request, saying it stemmed Zion, operated by Telfed – respective cinematheques Nir Hasson from a desire to restrict his The South African Zionist of Tel Aviv (February 8-15), A court yesterday rejected client’s political activity rath- Federation. The Telfed Jerusalem (February 9-18) the police’s request to bar two er than from the needs of the Ethiopian Community and Haifa (February 10-17). left-wing activists from the investigation. Initiative opened the shop West Bank, terming it an un- In response, police repre- last month “to provide a BRAIN UNDRAIN: A new acceptable infringement on sentative Avi Tivoni, said, “I source of low-cost clothing initiative, the Zuckerman their freedom of occupation know he’s involved in provo- and household goods, some Postdoctoral Scholars and expression. cations against IDF soldiers new,” committee chairman Program, aims to attract Ezra Nawi and Guy Bu- and confrontations with sol- Mel Cohen told Haaretz. “A postdoctoral researchers tavia, both members of the diers as part of his activity significant number of people from North America and other Ta’ayush organization, were in what he terms a human have been coming in.” Three Western countries to Israel’s arrested over two weeks rights organization.” Peleg volunteers – former South major academic centers, ago on suspicion of various said this response proved Africans Roy Scher and the Technion-Israel Institute crimes, including contact his point that the police’s Shira Lipschitz along with of Technology announced with a foreign agent.
    [Show full text]
  • Preliminary Remarks on Yiddish Culture in Poland 1945-1968
    SCRIPTA JUDAICA CRACOVIENSIA * Vol. 2 Kraków 2003 Magdalena Ruta Preliminary remarks on Yiddish Culture in Poland 1945-1968 Permit me to present some general remarks on Yiddish culture in Poland after the Second World War. This war brought the extermination of both Polish Jews and their culture which had flowered in the interwar period, especially in Poland, with enormous intensity. Nevertheless, a small group of Jewish writers and journalists, who had survived mostly in the Soviet Union, made an effort to later revive Yiddish culture in Poland. To my knowledge there has not been much research on this topic. Nonetheless, some historical works, in which authors concentrate mainly on the 1945-1956 period, have appeared in Poland in recent years. 1 In the Encyclopedia szel Galujot (VM) there is a 20 page article entitled “Yiddishe literarishe tetikeyt in Poyln in di yom 1946-1968” written by David Sfard, and in Encyclopedia Judaica (CD Rom Edition) one can find an entry for Poland with an article on Jewish cultural life in post­ war Poland by this same author. In 1987 the Bibliography of Hebrew and Yiddish Publications in Poland since 1944 was published in Israel. The same year Shlomo Straus-Marko wrote Di geshikhte fun yidishn yishuv in nokhmilkhomedikn Poyln, which contains reprints of articles from the Jewish press of 1945-1968 and reflections on subjects connected with culture (press, publicity, literary life, etc. ), but this work seems to lack a scholarly nature. There also exist remembrances referring to the epoch of 1945-1968. Among them are David Sfard’s and Hersh (Grzegorz) Smolar’s memoirs.
    [Show full text]
  • Transformations in Jewish Self-Identification Before, During, and After the American Civil War" (2020)
    W&M ScholarWorks Undergraduate Honors Theses Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 5-2020 Changing Notions of Identity: Transformations in Jewish Self- Identification Before, During, and After the American Civil War Heather Byrum Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses Part of the History of Religion Commons, Jewish Studies Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Byrum, Heather, "Changing Notions of Identity: Transformations in Jewish Self-Identification Before, During, and After the American Civil War" (2020). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 1562. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/1562 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Changing Notions of Identity: Transformations in Jewish Self-Identification Before, During, and After the American Civil War A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in History from The College of William and Mary by Heather L. Byrum Accepted for _________________________ (Honors, High Honors, Highest Honors) _________________________ Carol Sheriff, Director Jay Watkins III Williamsburg, VA May 5, 2020 1 Changing Notions of Identity: Transformations in Jewish Self-Identification Before, During, and After the American Civil
    [Show full text]
  • Assorted Matters,The Valmadonna Broadside
    Assorted Matters Assorted Matters Marc B. Shapiro My next post will take some time to prepare, but there are some other matters that I want to bring to readers’ attention, in particular a few books that I recently received. Due to space considerations, I couldn’t include these in my last post. 1. For those interested in the history of Lithuanian yeshivot, the last few years have been very fruitful. In 2014 Ben-Tsiyon Klibansky’s Ke-Tzur Halamish appeared. This book is a study of the yeshivot from World War I until the destruction of European Jewry. 2015 saw the appearance of Geoffrey D. Claussen’s Sharing the Burden: Rabbi Simhah Zissel Ziv and the Path of Mussar.[1]In January 2016 Shlomo Tikoshinski’s long- awaited book appeared. Its title isLamdanut, Musar ve- Elitizm: Yeshivat Slobodka me-Lita le-Eretz Yisrael. The book can be purchased here. Eliezer Brodt is also selling the book and a portion of each sale will go to support the efforts of the Seforim Blog, so I also encourage purchasing from him. This outstanding book is full of new information, and Tikoshinski had access to a variety of private archives and letters that help bring to life a world now lost. Lamdanut, Musar ve-Elitizm is also a crucial source in understanding the development of religious life in Eretz Yisrael in the two decades before the creation of the State. When you read about the Slobodka students, and later the students of Chevron, it is impossible not to see how very different the student culture was then from what is found today in haredi yeshivot, including the contemporary Yeshivat Chevron.
    [Show full text]
  • Jewish Humor
    Jewish Humor Jewish Humor: An Outcome of Historical Experience, Survival and Wisdom By Arie Sover Jewish Humor: An Outcome of Historical Experience, Survival and Wisdom By Arie Sover This book first published 2021 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2021 by Arie Sover All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-6447-9 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-6447-3 With love to my parents, Clara (Zipkis) and Aurel Sober, and my grandmother, Fanny Zipkis: Holocaust survivors who bequeathed their offspring with a passion for life and lots of humor. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements .................................................................................. xii Preface ..................................................................................................... xiii Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 Literacy and critical Jewish thought ........................................................... 2 The sources of Jewish humor ..................................................................... 6 The Bible ..............................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • I.L. Peretz, Father of the Yiddish Renaissance
    Click here for Full Issue of Fidelio Volume 12, Number 2, Summer 2003 Jews celebrate completion of the writing of a Torah scroll, synagogue in Dubrovna, Belorussia, early Twentieth century, in the Pale of Jewish Settlement. Dubrovna, a textile center, produced most of the prayer shawls for the Russian Empire. I.L. Peretz, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Archives Father of theYiddish Renaissance by Paul Kreingold ‘It is not enough to speak Yiddish— you must have something to say.’ Introduction The year 2002 marked the 150th birthday of I.L. Peretz, the Father of the Yiddish Renaissance. Playwright, poet, composer, essayist, and political organizer, Peretz, by the time of his death in 1915, was the most published Yiddish writer in history, and the most beloved.1 Under his intellectual leadership, Yiddish was transformed, in less than a century, from a “kitchen jargon,” to one of the great languages of the world, spoken by over 11,000,000 people; a language which was capable of transmitting the ideas of the Isaac Leibush Peretz Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment, to the Jews of Poland, 35 © 2003 Schiller Institute, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited. Russia, and the United States. The Haskalah was initiated a hundred years earlier by the great German-Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, who demonstrated that a Jew could free himself from the parochial- ism of ghetto life, become recog- nized as the most profound thinker in the “outside” world, and still remain true to the faith of his fathers. In a 1999 speech, Helga Zepp LaRouche describes Mendelssohn as follows: Moses Mendelssohn is a good example of a world-historical individual.
    [Show full text]
  • Sholem Aleichem and Others: Laughing Off the Trauma of History
    DAVID G. ROSKIES Sholem Aleichem and Others: Laughing Off the Trauma of History SHOLEM ALEICHEM LIVED just long enough to see his comicmuse tested to the limit. As we follow his writings in chronological order, in a time span of escalating violence, we see an ever-growing tension between what is being narrated and the way it is narrated. The greater the pain, the greater the discrepancy. This, strange to say, is the stuff of his humor. By drawing on folk tradition, on concepts of normalcy and on models of communication, Sholem Aleichem perfected an art of the incongruous to take on the vicissitudes of modern times. Itwas a comic paradigm which could be followed by very few because so few could sustain a vision of human inviolability as the divergence between catas trophe and the tongue became ever more extreme. How Sholem Alei chem trained towalk the tightrope and who itwas among the survivors of later cataclysms that followed his precarious lead are the questions that concern us, as we set out to write a garrulous chapter in the modern Jewish literary response to catastrophe. It is particularly to the postwar generations that Sholem Aleichem holds out the greatest challenge, for jaded as we are by a modernist bias and an apocalyptic temper, we expect the writer to find new artistic means commensurate with the new violence. As Malcolm Bradbury reminds us, the modernist movement itself,which took shape between 1890-1914, was finally vindicated by the violence of the Great War, so that by the 1920s realism had been all but dislocated and only the most brutal form of anti-epic could survive in the scarred landscape of postwar fiction.1 Sholem Aleichem, by virtue of his literary credo, his political ideology, and the tools of his narrative art, stands in total opposition to the subversive tactics of literary modernism.2 PROOFTEXTS vol.
    [Show full text]
  • Yiddish Culture in the West
    Judah YIDDISH CULTURE Waten IN THE WEST The facts about the decline, often overlooked, of Yiddish culture in the West. Q FTEN when anti-Soviet propagandists assert that today Yiddish culture is in a serious plight in the Soviet Union and that soon the Soviet Jews will be without a literature and language, they appear to try to leave the impression that conversely in the West, the Yiddish language and literature are flourishing. Actually the reverse is true; Yiddish literature is at a very low ebb in the U.S.A. and is virtually extinct in Britain, but in the Soviet Union there is still considerable creative activity in the Yiddish language. As Dr. Nahum Goldmann said at the recent meeting of the World Jewish Congress, the Soviet Jewish community is “culturally one of the most creative” (Melbourne Herald, August 1, 1966). Yiddish, a younger language than Hebrew which goes back to antiquity, was derived from Middle High German between the 10th and 12th centuries, and after the Jewish migration eastward to Poland and Russia was mostly spoken in Eastern Europe where it was enriched by new words and word formations. Modern Yiddish literature was born in the mid-19th century in Czarist Russia in which lived nearly 50 per cent of the total Jewish population of the world at that time. Yiddish cultural expression grew up in the Pale of Settlement, the vast ghetto set up in 1835 by Nicholas I, in parts of white Russia and the Ukraine in which most of the Jews were compelled to live.
    [Show full text]