In 1913, the university student Max Weinreich produced brilliant Yiddish translations from Homer’s Iliad and the Gilgamesh epic in service to a passionate vision of Jewish cultural renaissance and reinvention. In 1933, Weinreich began a study of the political outlook and psychology of Polish Jewish youth that drove him to the precipice of despair about the future of Jewish life in Eastern Europe. This talk explores how Jewish intellectuals, poets, and ordinary people confronted the sense that their communal and personal futures might be foreclosed by anti-Semitism, illiberal nationalism, and the politics of rage and fear that began to flourish across Europe in the early 1930s and how figures like Weinreich, deeply devoted to the idea that Jewish life could flourish in Eastern Europe, groped toward new understandings of their situation and sought new tools of thought and creativity to address it.

Presented as part of the Yiddish Book Center’s 2023 Decade of Discovery theme, Yiddish Around the World.

This live event will be presented via Zoom. Space is limited. If you’d like to reserve a virtual seat in the Zoom audience—registration is required.