Search

Cover of Dos faln un Berlin [The Fall of Berlin], New York: Tsiko Bikher Farlag, 1960. Towards the end of January 1945, two personal events deeply shook Dr. Anna Samuelovna Korina of the Red Army’s military hospital in the Praga district of Warsaw on the Vistula. They were sudden and so unexpected that they unnerved her, making her afraid to perform even the simplest operation. Under the pretext of fatigue, she entrusted the fate of the wounded soldiers to Dr. Leszniak. The snowstorm that had...

It was the first few days after taking Berlin. The wind carried the scent of springtime and of dead animals. There were corpses of half-skinned horses at the end of the street. There were the ruins of an airplane without wings. German women in colorful kerchiefs, red lips, and painted eyebrows sold themselves in the cellars of ruins for a soldier’s bread ration; “Come here, Russki, good, good…” A Cossack regiment rode by, young men from the Don River, serious, focused. Germans gathered on the...

Cover of Bay der vaysl [At the Vistula], Tel-Aviv: I. L. Peretz Bibliotek, 1958. Menakhem toils in the Urals for months, working in the grueling, nauseating coal mines, along Cossacks, Tatars, Kazakhs, Georgians, Ukrainians, and other Jews. The food is both meager and revolting. Dreams of Poland, Tengushay, and Moscow haunt him. He longs to be back at the front. A military commission arrives to recruit prisoners, and Menakhem volunteers. Khatshapuridza, an antisemitic Party member, ridicules ...

Lev Oshanin had left Johanna Ostergard’s house the day after he blew up the armoured cars. Aerial bombing followed soon after, and the main part of the house was destroyed. In the chaos Oshanin fled through the ruined streets. He walked through the city with his military satchel, sure that he would run into forward positions of the Soviets at one of the crossroads. The German tunic, the officer’s cap pulled down, and military satchel made him look like an army doctor hurrying to give emergenc...

He heard steps in the rainy night. Menakhem was standing at the window. The panes were clouded over. The steps faded into the black of night. They would probably return. The pine trees cast scattered shadows. An oil lamp swayed in the big hall, its pale, yellow light falling on the children’s beds. Dr. Jabrow was sitting, hunched over, and reading. He was exhausted from visiting one child after another. The rain was pounding on the windows, lighting them up with a silvery glow. Menakhem went ...

The Third Belorussian Front launched its offensive under the command of Marshal Vasilevsky in the first half of March. The purpose of the attack was to wipe out German positions in eastern Prussia and push to the Baltic Sea, to Pilau and to the Bay of Danzig. Twenty German divisions were stationed there, important military units for special missions. In addition, there were significant remnants of shattered divisions that had made their way back from regions in Belarus and Lithuania. The Gema...

Cover of Bay di toyern fun Moskve [At the Gates of Moscow], New York: Alveltlekhn YidishnKultur-Kongres, 1956. October 1941. The Germans have occupied Poland and invaded the USSR. Menakhem Isaacovitch, a Polish Jew who fled the Nazis in 1940, is warmly welcomed by the villagers of Tengushay and is now called Mikhail. As the German onslaught threatens Moscow, he is called up by the Red Army, along with local ethnic Russians, Mordvins, Bashkirs, and Tartars. The young artist, twenty-two, longs ...

A million and a half Jews fought in the armed forces of the Allies during the Second World War. They served in the armies, navies, and air forces of their native lands. Many who were forced to flee the Nazis then joined the war effort in the countries that had given them refuge. Between 490,000 and 520,000 Jewish soldiers fought in the Red Army. Most of them were native-born Soviet citizens; others were refugees from Poland and other lands occupied by the German Army. More than 120,000 Jews i...

Mendl Mann’s autobiographical novel The Fall of Berlin tells the painful yet compelling story of life as a Jewish soldier in the Red Army. Menakhem Isaacovich is a Polish Jew who, after fleeing the Nazis, finds refuge in the USSR. The novel follows Menakhem as he fights on the front line in Stalin’s Red Army against Hitler and the Nazis who are destroying his homeland of Poland and exterminating the Jews. Menakhem encounters anti-Semitism on various occasions throughout the narrative, and struggles to comprehend how seemingly normal people could hold such appalling views. As Mann writes, it is odd that "vicious, insidious anti-Semitism could reside in a person with elevated feelings, an average person, a decent person". The Fall of Berlin is both a striking and timely look at the struggle that many Jewish soldiers faced. Skillfully translated from Yiddish and introduced by Maurice Wolfthal, this is an affecting and unique book which eloquently explores a variety of themes - anti-Semitism, patriotism, Stalinism and life as a Jewish soldier in the Second World War. The Fall of Berlin is essential reading for anyone interested in the Yiddish language, Jewish history, and the history of World War II. As with all Open Book publications, this entire book is available to read for free on the publisher’s website. Printed and digital editions, together with supplementary digital material, can also be found at www.openbookpublishers.com.

Genocide targets lives and also aims to destroy cultures. Hence, refugees do not only save their bare lives, as the common notion of a refugee in need of individual protection assumes; they also engage in various collective practices to safeguard their cultural heritage from destruction. As an expression of self-consciousness against genocidal violence, this process of rescue becomes a part of that very cultural heritage and thus fundamentally alters its meaning. To develop a better understanding of this complex process, this article first develops general thoughts on refugee agency and cultural survival. Secondly, to exemplify the variety of such efforts and their cultural meaning, this article examines how European Jews, and particularly the General Jewish Labor Bund, attempted to save Yiddish culture and material collections on the secular history of European Jews during the 20th century. In conclusion, it argues that in addition to the individualized perception of a refugee, we need to consider collective cultural rescue as an integral part of refugee politics.

This article discusses an organized name-change process that occurred in the 1930s in the Jewish community of Helsinki. Between 1933 and 1944 in approximately one fifth of the Helsinki Jewish families (c. 16 %) someone had their family name changed. We argue that the name changes served two purposes: on the one hand they made life easier in the new nation state. It was part of a broader process where tens of thousands of Finns translated and changed their Swedish names to Finnish ones. On the other hand, the changed family names offered a new kind of Jewish identity. The name-changing process of the Helsinki Jews opens a window onto the study of nationalism, antisemitism, identity politics and visions of a Jewish future from the Finnish perspective.

Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish as Determinants of Identity: As Illustrated in the Jewish Press of the First Half of the Twentieth CenturyThe paper shows an image and functions of Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish languages among Jewish Diaspora groups – the Balkan Sephardim and the Ashkenazim (the Ostjuden group) – in the period from the beginning of the twentieth century until the outbreak of World War II. The study is based on the articles from Jewish weeklies, magazines and newspapers from pre-war Bosnia and Hercegovina and from Germany/Poland. It demonstrates a double-sided attitude towards the languages. On the one hand – an image of the languages as determinants of Jewish identity. Touching on this theme, the authors of the paper also try to highlight the images of Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish and as determinants in a narrower sense – of the Sephardi/Ashkenazi identity in that period. On the other hand, the paper shows a tendency to treat the languages as “corrupted” and “dying” languages, and as factors slowing down the assimilation of Jewish groups and also as an obstacle for Zionist ideologies. Języki jidysz i żydowsko-hiszpański jako wskaźniki tożsamości – na przykładzie żydowskich tekstów prasowych pierwszej połowy XX wiekuArtykuł ukazuje obraz i funkcje języków jidysz i żydowsko-hiszpańskiego wśród żydowskich grup diasporowych – bałkańskich Sefardyjczyków oraz Aszkenazyjczyków (Ostjuden) – w okresie od początków wieku XX do wybuchu II wojny światowej. Opis oparty jest na artykułach z żydowskich magazynów, tygodników, prasy codziennej z przedwojennej Bośni i Hercegowiny oraz Niemiec/Polski. Ukazany jest ambiwalentny stosunek wobec języków. Z jednej strony – obraz języków jako wskaźników żydowskiej tożsamości, jak również obraz jidysz i żydowsko-hiszpańskiego jako wskaźników tożsamości w węższym ujęciu: tożsamości sefardyjskiej/aszkenazyjskiej w omawianym okresie. Z drugiej strony zaś – artykuł zwraca uwagę także na to, że oba języki były traktowane jako „zepsute”, „umierające” i stanowiące czynniki spowalniające asymilację grup żydowskich oraz przeszkodę dla idei syjonistycznych.

After the Holocaust’s near complete destruction of European Yiddish cultural centres, the Yiddish language was largely viewed as a remnant of the past, tragically eradicated in its prime. This article reveals that, on the contrary, for two and a half decades following the Holocaust Yiddish culture was in dynamic flux. Yiddish writers and cultural organisations maintained a staggering level of activity in fostering publications and performances, collecting archival and historical materials, and launching young literary talents. This article provides a cultural historical map of a Yiddish transnational network that derived its unity from the common purpose of commemorating and bearing witness to the destruction of the Jewish heartland in Central and Eastern Europe.

At the beginning of the 1940s, Hebrew writer David Vogel (1891-1944) started to write a Yiddish novel for the first time. As an Austrian citizen living in France, he had been held in a camp for suspicious foreigners. His narrative, inspired by this experience, remained untitled after he was captured and sent to death by the Gestapo at the beginning of 1944. Its original version has never been published.This article gives an overview of critical approaches to this text that have been published up to now. It proposes an analysis based on Merleau-Ponty’s linguistic thought and on the principles of literary genetics. The manuscript, with its deletions and additions, is approached in the light of all the languages in which the author could have written in and that leave their mark on the narrative. The author of this article argues that the poetics of foreign language is more central than the question of Vogel’s linguistic identity. His writing in Yiddish thus poses the problem of the status of this language in a world where things are no longer called what they were. אָנהייב 40ער יאָרן האָט דער העברעיִשער שרײַבער דוד פֿאָגעל (1891 - 1944) צום ערשטן מאָל אונטערגענומען אַ ראָמאַן אין ייִדיש. ווי אַן עסטרײַכישער אונטערטאַנער אין פֿראַנקרײַך, איז ער אָנהייב מלחמה פֿאַרשיקט געוואָרן אין אַ לאַגער פֿאַר פֿאַרדעכטיקע אויסלענדער. דעם ראָמאַן, וואָס אינספּירירט זיך אין יענער איבערלעבונג, האָט פֿאָגעל געשריבן נאָך זײַן באַפֿרײַונג און ביז אָנהייב 1944, ווען ער איז אַרײַנגעפֿאַלן צו דער געסטאַפּאָ אין די הענט און פֿאַרשיקט געוואָרן צום אומקום. ער איז געבליבן אומבאַנאָמענט און איז קיין מאָל נישט פּובליקירט געוואָרן אין אָריגינאַל.דער אַרטיקל קאָמענטירט די ביז–איצטיקע קריטיק איבער פֿאָגעלס לעצט ווערק, און פֿירט דורך אַן אַנאַליז אויפֿן יסוד פֿון מערלאָ–פּאָנטיס לינגוויסטישן באַנעם און לויט די הנחות פֿון דער גענעטישער קריטיק. דער כּתבֿ–יד ווערט באַטראַכט, מיט זײַנע צוגאָבן און אויסגעמעקטע ערטער, אין ליכט פֿון אַלע לשונות וואָס פֿאָגעל וואָלט געקענט האָבן געניצט און פֿון די, וואָס מע באַגעגנט אינעם תּחום פֿונעם סיפּור–המעשׂה. די מחברטע האַלט אַז די אַלגעמיינע פּאָעטיק פֿון דער פֿרעמדשפּראַך קומט פֿריִער ווי די פֿראַגע פֿון פֿאָגעלס שפּראַכלעכער אידענטיטעט. די דאָזיקע פּאָעטיק דערלויבט צוצוגיין צו פֿאָגעלס ייִדיש–שרײַבן ווי צו אַ פֿאַרכאַפּנדיקן אויסדרוק פֿון דער אלגעמיינער פּראָבלעמאַטיק פֿונעם מעמד פֿון ייִדיש אין אַ וועלט, וווּ די זאַכן טראָגן מער נישט די נעמען וואָס די דאָזיקע שפּראַך האָט זיי געגעבן.

Manuscript no.1414 from the French National Library, dated from 1246/47, contains a list of twelve names of Christian months written with Hebrew letters. This list must be considered as the embryonic state of Jewish representations of the Christian calendar which became more developed in later documents. It is amongst the oldest written examples of Eastern Yiddish. These names provide new elements to linguistic research about pre-Christian denominations of the Germanic calendar. This article is a detailed study of the etymological and dialectological questions raised by these appellations. Within the context of Yiddish studies, this text shows that from the time of the earliest linguistic documents that we have up to 1349, relations between Christians and Jews caused a direct influence of German dialects on Yiddish. די רשימה מיט די צוועלף נעמען פֿון די קריסטלעכע חדשים, פֿאַרצייכנטע מיט העברעיִשע אותיות אינעם כּתבֿ–יד נומ’ 1414 פֿון דער פֿראַנצייזישער מלוכה–ביבליאָטעק (יאָר 47 / 1246), דאַרף באַטראַכט ווערן ווי אַן עמבריִאָן פֿון אַ ווערסיע פֿון קריסטלעכן לוח צו באַדינען אַ ייִדישן עולם, ווי די וואָס מע באַגעגנט שפּעטער אין אַ מער אַנטוויקלטער סטאַדיע. מע מעג זי באַטראַכטן ווי איינע פֿון די פֿריסטע אויפֿווײַזן פֿון מערבֿדיקן ייִדיש. די דאָזיקע נעמען טראָגן צו צו דער לינגוויסטישער ליטעראַטור נײַע עלעמענטן בנוגע די פֿאַרקריסטלעכע דענאָמינאַציעס פֿון גערמאַנישן קאַלענדאַר. דער איצטיקער אַרטיקל שטודירט פּרטימדיק די שייכדיקע עטימאָלאָגישע און דיאַלעקטאָלאָגישע פֿראַגעס. פֿונעם קוקווינקל פֿון דער ייִדיש–פֿאָשונג, ווערט דאָ ווידער געוויזן ווי די קעגנזײַטיקע אויסטוישן צווישן ייִדן און קריסטן, אָנגעהויבן פֿון די עלטסטע לינגוויסטישע אויפֿווײַזן און ביז 1349, האָבן געברענגט ווי אַ פּועל–יוצא אַ דירעקטע השפּעה פֿון די דײַטשע דיאַלעקטן אויף דער ייִדישער שפּראַך.

Isaac Baschevis Singer (1941–1991) – 1978 Nobel Prize winner – grew up in Chassidic milieu in Poland. Influenced by secular literature and by the works of Baruch Spinonza already in his youth, Singer as an adult distanced himself from traditional Jewish thinking but never freed himself from the surroundings in which he grew up. In his literary works a central theme is the conflict between orthodox faith and secular ideas. In 1935 Singer emigrated to the United States. Nevertheless, until his death he continued to write in his mother tongue Yiddish, and he was the first to deliver a Nobel Prize speech in this language. In his works the supernatural and the rational are intermingling. His memories from a vanished culture never have a sentimental or nostalgic character. First and foremost he is the storyteller who shuns moralistic pointing fingers. His stories seem at first simple and uncomplicated. In the closer reading, however, the great depth of these stories is opening itself up. Despite the fact that the milieu of the stories is pointedly Jewish, the subject is human beings in general and eternal human questions.

The complex attitude of Yiddish and Polish speakers, Jewish and non-Jewish, towards Yiddish, is reflected in the way the language is named. These designations evolve along the years, often following international – and particularly German – terminology. This evolution is not confined to a merely linguistic question: it reveals deep identity splits and is strongly linked to ideological and political choices. This article provides a detailed analysis of this evolution in newspapers and literature as well as in dictionaries and encyclopaedias. It explains the variations of point of view subtly implied by each terminological choice. די גאַנצע פֿאַרפּלאָנטערטקייט פֿון דער באַציִונג צו ייִדיש מצד ייִדיש–רעדערס און פּויליש–רעדערס, ייִדן און נישט–ייִדן אין פּוילן ביזן חורבן — שפּיגלט זיך אָפּ אין די דענאָמינאַציעס וואָס מע באַניצט פֿאַר דער שפּראַך, וועלכע בײַטן זיך מיטן גאַנג פֿון די יאָרן און אויך לויט די שינוייִם פֿון דער אינטערנאַציאָנאַלער, באַזונדערס דײַטשער, טערמינאָלאָגיע. עס גייט נישט אין קיין סתּם לינגוויסטישן ענין. עס ווירקן דערין גרונטיקע אידענטיטעט–חילוקים, ווי אויך אידעאָלאָגישע און פּאָליטישע שטעלונגען. דער אַרטיקל גייט נאָך די דאָזיקע עוואָלוציע אין דער פּרעסע און אין דער ליטעראַטור, אין ווערטערביכער און ענציקלאָפּעדיעס, און קלערט אויף די סובטילע באַטײַטן פֿון יעדער טערמינאָלאָגישער ברירה.

This article presents the “Memoirs” of Henri Schwab (born in 1890), a Yiddish speaker from the Alsatian village of Gerstheim, in the Bas-Rhin. His testimony, recorded in the 1960s, will be published separately, as well as other life stories (Marcel Sulzer, Arthur Zivy about Durmenach) published since 1995 by Les Cahiers du CREDYO (Mulhouse).The interview is composed both of prewritten texts read by Henri Schwab during the discussion and of spontaneous dialogues between the writer, the interviewer and other informants.The presentation highlights the most significant points of the interview (family memories, education, tradition and customs of Alsatian Jews) as well as some linguistic aspects, like the place of Yiddish language in Alsace in the decades preceding the Great War and the characteristics of Western Yiddish, as spoken by Henri Schwab. דער אַרטיקל פּרעזענטירט די זכרונות פֿון אַ ייִדיש–רעדנדיקן עלזאַסער ייִד, הענרי שוואַב, געבוירן אין 1890 אין גערשטהיים, אַ שטעטל אין נידער–רײַן. דער אינטערוויו איז אויפֿגענומען געוואָרן אין די זעכציקער יאָרן און וועט פּובליקירט ווערן אין דער סעריע לעבנס–דערציילונגען (מאַרסעל זולצער, אַרטור ציווי פֿון דורמענעך) וואָס דערשײַנען זינט 1995 אינעם זשורנאַל Les Cahiers du CREDYO פֿונעם צענטער פֿאַר דער פֿאָרשונג פֿון מערבֿ–ייִדיש אין מילוז.אינעם אינטערוויו זענען פֿאַראַן שטעלן וווּ דער אינפֿאָרמאַנט לייענט פֿאָר זײַנע פֿון פֿריִער צוגעגרייטע ענטפֿערס, און אַנדערע וווּ ער שמועסט ספּאָנטאַן מיטן אינטערוויויִרער און אַנדערע אינפֿאָרמאַנטן. די פּרעזענטירונג באַלײַכט די הויפּטמאָמענטן פֿונעם דערציילטן : משפּחה–זכרונות, דערציִונג, טראַדיציעס און מינהגים, ווי אויך לינגוויסטישע אַספּעקטן : דאָס אָרט פֿון ייִדיש אין עלזאַסער קהילה–לעבן אָנהייב 20סטן י“ה און די באַזונדערקייטן פֿונעם עלזאַסער ייִדיש אינעם אינפֿאָרמאַנטס מויל.

Paulus und das Judentum. Antropologische Erwägungen (Timo Laato, 1991 diss.) is reviewed by Lars Aejmelaeus.Moses Hess on religion. Judaism and the Bible (Svante Lundgren, 1992) is reviewed by Karl-Erich Grözinger.Abraham ibn Ezra y su tiempo / Abraham ibn Ezra and his age (ed. Fernando Diaz Esteban, 1990) is reviewed by Tryggve Kronholm.Kommentar till påskhaggadan (Nils Martola, 1988) is reviewed by Tryggve Kronholm.Pilatusbilledet i den antike jødedom og kristendom (Niels Willert, 1989) is reviewed by Karl-Gustav Sandelin.Die unterlegene Religion. Das Judentum im Urteil deutscher Alttestamentler. Kritik theologischer Geschichtsschreibung (Ulrich Kusche, 1991) is reviewed by Svante Lundgren.Judentum im deutschen Sprachraum (ed. Karl E. Grözinger, 1991) is reviewed by Svante Lundgren.Jiddische Sprachgeschichte (Bettina Simon, 1988) is reviewed by Theodor Katz.Kinesiske jøder (Jens Christian Larsen, 1991) is reviewed by Theodor Katz.Människan och hennes bildkonst (Martin Buber, 1991) is reviewed by Siv Illman.Kuolleen meren kirjakääröt. Qumranin tekstit suomeksi (ed. Raija Sollamo, 1991) is reviewed by Antti Laato.Fortolkning som formidling. Om den bibliske eksegeses funktion (eds. Lone Fatum & Eduard Nielsen, 1992) is reviewed by Roger Syrén.Alkukirkko ja juutalaisuus (eds. Anne-Marit Enroth-Voitila, Matti Myllykoski, 1991) is reviewed by Nils Martola.Short notice by Nils Martola.Motståndet. Arton brev om död och liv (Per Ahlmark & Georg Klein, 1991) is reviewed by Karl-Johan Illman.Judarna i det svenska samhället. Identitet, integration, etniska relationer (ed. Kerstin Nyström, 1991) is reviewed by Karl-Johan Illman.Divided passions. Jewish intellectuals and the experience of modernity (Paul Mendes-Flohr, 1991) is reviewed by Karl-Johan Illman.

Yiddish has been spoken in Helsinki since 1850s when the Jewish Cantonist soldiers and their families were allowed to settle in the town. The first generations born in Helsinki had the possibility to attend heders and a Talmud-torah where religious subjects were conducted in Yiddish. In the wake of Yiddishizm many Yiddish-speaking societies were founded before and after the First World War. My research attempts an analysis of Helsinki Yiddish and a survey of Yiddish culture in Helsinki. The material used for this paper comprises both written and oral stories. Most Yiddish speakers in Helsinki have been bilingual. The over hundred years of coexistence with Finnish-Swedish has given Helsinki Yiddish its own distinctive character, which deserves to be recorded and studied. Especially unique is the interference of Swedish morphology with its peculiarities.

The first Zionist Congresses left the Jewish majority in Sweden relatively untouched. It is true that Professor Gottlieb Klein, the influential Rabbi of Stockholm, a student and personal friend of the great German reformer, Abraham Geiger, and to a lesser extent his colleague in Gothenburg, Dr. Koch, did oppose the Jewish national movement, but not until January 1910, when the first Zionist society was founded in Stockholm, did Swedish Jews seriously consider this alternative to their “prophetic” Judaism. Efforts by the Zionists in Sweden to gain public attention for themselves were mainly ineffectual until Kurt Blumenfeld, the General Secretary and Chief of Information for the World Zionist Organization in Berlin, visited Stockholm and Gothenburg in 1912 to deliver several open lectures.

The aim of this article is to analyze the history and identity changes of a particular ethnopolitical generation – the former Jewish communists of Poland. The members of the group began their lives in Poland between the World Wars, they survived the Second World War as refugees in the Soviet Union&&after the war they rebuilt their lives in Poland&&during the years 1969–1972 they started a new life in Sweden. The analysis will be guided by the following questions: What are the repercussions of the group’s social and political experiences on its ethnic identity? What is the nature of changes that have taken place in its ethnic identity? What is the present state of the ethnic identity of the group? Which factors have influenced and shaped it?