Reviews
Review
Review: Rabbinical Literature in Yiddish and Ladino, edited by Katja Šmid, David M. Bunis, and Chava Turniansky
The anthology Rabbinical Literature in Yiddish and Ladino, edited by Katja Šmid, David M. Bunis, and Chava Turniansky contributes to the ongoing scholarly discussion on the relationship between vernacular and learned literatures in Jewish communities.
Apr 08, 2026
Review
Review of Making and Unmaking Literature in the Warsaw, Lodz, and Vilna Ghettos by Sven-Erik Rose
Sven-Erik Rose devotes tremendous care to the texts he studies, situating them in broader currents of modern European literature and zeroing in on the qualities that make them astonishing and worthy of a much wider readership than they have had. His book will undoubtedly be a boon to scholars and readers of all kinds, from experts in the field to those with little knowledge to teachers looking for ways of incorporating powerful, lesser-known Holocaust texts into their classes.
Apr 07, 2026
Review
Review of Letters from the Afterlife: The Post-Holocaust Correspondence of Chava Rosenfarb and Zenia Larsson. Edited by Goldie Morgentaler.
The letters collected here document the women’s profound struggles with survivors’ guilt, immigration, and cultural during the postwar years.
Mar 15, 2026
Review
Review of Henry H. Sapoznik, The Tourist’s Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City
Drawing on his own passion, his background as chronicler of Yiddish song, and his deep research in thousands of newspapers, biographical materials, and many little-known images of disappeared sites and buildings, Sapoznik documents the continuing legacy of Yiddish culture in the American present.
Mar 09, 2026
Review
Activism Despite Chaos: A review of Eli Gumener‘s A Ukrainian Chapter: A Jewish Aid Worker’s Memoir of Sorrow (Podolia, 1918–20)
Mar 08, 2026
Review
Past-continuous: New Sound Worlds of Klezmer: A Review of Jake Shulman-Ment and Abigale Reisman’s Two Strings/Tsvey Strunes and Zoë Aqua’s In a Sea of Stars
These two new releases stand out as shining achievements of the second wave of the American klezmer revival/revitalization movement.
Feb 06, 2026
Review
Just the Two of Us?: A Review of Celia Dropkin's Desires
Dropkin charts the competing ways of desire—for sex, for a child, for security—that swirled within any woman poised between tradition and modern life in America.
Jan 29, 2026
Review
Review of Men of Valor and Anxiety: Polish-Jewish Masculinities and the Challenge of Modernity by Mariusz Kalczewiak
Throughout, Men of Valor and Anxiety pays sophisticated attention to the pushes and pulls of masculinity: it narrates neither a world in which a man simply goes out and puts together whatever kind of gender he wants, nor a world where there is a single, fixed masculinity without deviations.
Jan 19, 2026
Review
On fliterlekh, Without Sequins: A Review of The Mother of Yiddish Theatre
Ester-Rokhl Kaminska picks blackberries better than anyone else. When she lights Shabbos candlesticks, they shine brighter than any other Shabbos candlesticks.
Jan 12, 2026
Review
Review of Socialist Yiddishlands: Language Politics and Transnational Entanglements between 1941 and 1991, edited by Miriam Chorley-Schulz and Alexander Walther
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