![]() The JPS also issued two Sholem Asch novels, Kiddush Ha-Shem (1912, translated by Rufus Learsi) and Sabbatai Zevi (1930) A.S. JPS’s earliest translations were of Peretz’s Stories and Pictures (1904) and Yiddish Tales (1912), both translated by Helena Frank, a non-Jew from Great Britain. were published by the Jewish Publication Society (JPS), a non-profit membership organization founded by German Jews that is the oldest Jewish publisher in the land. Most other early translations of Yiddish literature into English in the U.S. The following year, Wiener’s The History of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century appeared, with selections from Yiddish writers and poets. That honor belongs to Leo Wiener, a Harvard professor and immigrant from Poland, who was so impressed with Morris Rosenfeld’s poetry that he translated selections and published them as Songs of the Ghetto (1898). Leftists were not the first American Jews to produce translations, however. It can almost be said that Yiddish literature served as the secular Jewish “Bible.” It should therefore come as no surprise that secular Jewish leftists have historically taken the lead in preserving and translating this literature and incorporating into it their concept of Jewish culture ( yidishkayt). Although rooted in the religious tradition, they were, with few exceptions, decidedly secular in their outlook, and often sympathetic to radical movements of the left. They formed a special bond with their readers, which gave Yiddish literature a popular character. Yiddish authors did not write for the educated elite, but for the average Jew. ![]() Its creators were typically rebels against authority and proponents of universal ideals of freedom of thought, social justice and human dignity. Modern Yiddish literature is a prime expression of Jewish humanism.
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