The Holocaust & the Exile of Yiddish
336 pages, 6 x 9
24 color images
Hardcover
Release Date:15 Apr 2022
ISBN:9781978825451
The Holocaust & the Exile of Yiddish
A History of the Algemeyne Entsiklopedye
Rutgers University Press
In the early 1930s in Berlin, Germany, a group of leading Eastern European Jewish intellectuals embarked upon a project to transform the lives of millions of Yiddish-speaking Jews around the world. Their goal was to publish a popular and comprehensive Yiddish language encyclopedia of general knowledge that would serve as a bridge to the modern world and as a guide to help its readers navigate their way within it. However, soon after the Algemeyne entsiklopedye (General Encyclopedia) was announced, Hitler’s rise to power forced its editors to flee to Paris. The scope and mission of the project repeatedly changed before its final volumes were published in New York City in 1966.
The Holocaust & the Exile of Yiddish untangles the complicated saga of the Algemeyne entsiklopedye and its editors. The editors continued to publish volumes and revise the encyclopedia’s mission while their primary audience, Eastern European Jews, faced persecution and genocide under Nazi rule, and the challenge of reestablishing themselves in the first decades after World War II. Historian Barry Trachtenberg reveals how, over the course of the middle decades of the twentieth century, the project sparked tremendous controversy in Jewish cultural and political circles, which debated what the purpose of a Yiddish encyclopedia should be, as well as what knowledge and perspectives it should contain. Nevertheless, this is not only a story about destruction and trauma, but also one of tenacity and continuity, as the encyclopedia’s compilers strove to preserve the heritage of Yiddish culture, to document its near-total extermination in the Holocaust, and to chart its path into the future.
The Holocaust & the Exile of Yiddish untangles the complicated saga of the Algemeyne entsiklopedye and its editors. The editors continued to publish volumes and revise the encyclopedia’s mission while their primary audience, Eastern European Jews, faced persecution and genocide under Nazi rule, and the challenge of reestablishing themselves in the first decades after World War II. Historian Barry Trachtenberg reveals how, over the course of the middle decades of the twentieth century, the project sparked tremendous controversy in Jewish cultural and political circles, which debated what the purpose of a Yiddish encyclopedia should be, as well as what knowledge and perspectives it should contain. Nevertheless, this is not only a story about destruction and trauma, but also one of tenacity and continuity, as the encyclopedia’s compilers strove to preserve the heritage of Yiddish culture, to document its near-total extermination in the Holocaust, and to chart its path into the future.
[A] fascinating book..[T]he story Trachtenberg tells—and depicts with brilliant illustrations—is a testament to the perseverance of those who sought to continue producing knowledge in spite of everything, and is a useful contribution to Yiddish studies.
Trachtenberg’s monograph joins a host of others published in recent years focused on interwar Yiddish culture...Trachtenberg makes the point of directly addressing the presence and absence of Yiddish-speaking women in the male-dominated Yiddish intellectual project like the Algemeyne Entsiklopedye... The Holocaust The Exile of Yiddish is a testament to archival research and the collection of knowledge—both in terms of its subject matter and its own creation.
As Barry Trachtenberg illuminates in his important and insightful history of the Algemeyne entsiklopedye, the Yiddish cultural nationalist dreams of the 1920s and 1930s would be utterly transformed by the throes of World War II and the annihilation of Jewish Europe, but not destroyed...[The Holocaust the Exile of Yiddish] tells the story of a burgeoning moment in Yiddish culture, and of the fate of that culture in post-war America, a story waiting to be heard, and one that is accessible to students and scholars alike.
How a Yiddish encyclopedia became a document of the Holocaust and Jewish culture,' by Benjamin Ivry
Encyclopedic Knowledge: Rokhl’s Golden City: A new look at the story behind one of the quirkiest Yiddish reference books,' by Rokhl Kafrissen
One cannot read this work without feeling gratitude toward Trachtenberg for his prodigious research and the clarity of his understanding. One must read it also to understand the audacity of its original self-assigned task and the persistence of those who insisted—even after the destruction, even after multiple exiles and perilous journeys of survival—there was a task that must be completed. Such persistence, such dedication, such determination, and such loyalty to a common task.
A fresh contribution to Jewish studies as a whole and Yiddish studies in particular, this work is especially notable for bridging the prewar, World War II, and postwar periods.
An excellent vantage point for understanding many things associated with Jewish life in the twentieth century. The scope of research and analysis is very impressive. This is a very useful book!
BARRY TRACHTENBERG is the Michael H. and Deborah K. Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. His books include The United States and the Nazi Holocaust: Race, Refuge, and Remembrance and The Revolutionary Roots of Modern Yiddish, 1903-1917.
Introduction
1. A Bible for the New Age: Berlin, 1930–1933
2. Man Plans, and Hitler Laughs: Paris, 1933–1940
3. Spinning the Historical Threads: New York, 1940–1966
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
1. A Bible for the New Age: Berlin, 1930–1933
2. Man Plans, and Hitler Laughs: Paris, 1933–1940
3. Spinning the Historical Threads: New York, 1940–1966
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
