A handful of Yiddish authors are well known today: Isaac Bashevis Singer, Sholem Aleichem, Elie Weisel. But the vast majority have become obscure or forgotten outside of small circles. One crucial reason for this is that many works of Yiddish literature have not been translated into English. And even those that have been are often out of print. The story is even more challenging for many women writers in Yiddish, who struggled to be read, published, and taken seriously. Luckily for us, a growing number of talented translators and scholars have turned their attention in recent years to translating stories, novels, essays, memoir, poetry, and plays written by women in Yiddish. Ellen Cassedy has translated two volumes of stories by women writers: On the Landing: Stories by Yenta Mash and Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories, by Blume Lempel (translated with Yermiyahu Ahron Taub). Ellen and Madeleine will have a conversation about this exciting new abundance of great writing by women now available in English. 

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

Madeleine Cohen is the academic director of the Yiddish Book Center. She has a PhD in Comparative Literature with an emphasis in Jewish Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on modern Yiddish literature and the relationships between Jewish politics in central and Eastern Europe and writing about place. Mindl has taught Yiddish language at Harvard University and for a number of organizations, and she was an instructor for the Helix Fellowship run by Yiddishkayt (Los Angeles). She directs translation initiatives at the Center, which includes the Yiddish translation fellowship and the annual Pakn Treger digital translation issue. She was translations editor and chief editor for In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies, and now serves as president of In geveb’s board of directors. 

Ellen Cassedy is the co-translator, with Yermiyahu Ahron Taub, of Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories by Blume Lempel, which was published by Dryad Press and Mandel Vilar Press in 2016 and received the Leviant Prize from the Modern Language Association.  She is also the translator of On the Landing: Stories by Yenta Mash, published by Northern Illinois University Press in 2018. She was a 2015 Yiddish translation fellow at the Yiddish Book Center. She is the author of We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust, which was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2012. To learn more about Ellen Cassedy's work, click here.

WE HOPE YOU'LL JOIN US!

Sign up below to attend Rediscovering Women Yiddish Writers Through Translation, the third in a series of four Celebration of Yiddish Culture events offered by B’nai Havurah's Year of Learning and sponsored by the CBG Family Fund.

All four of the Celebration of Yiddish Culture events are FREE, and voluntary donations are welcome from those able to support the musicians/speakers and our small congregation. Thank you!

This event is sponsored by the Yiddish Book Center, yiddishbookcenter.org and B'nai Havurah's Year of Learning (CBG Family Fund).

YIDDISH CULTURE EVENTS ARE HAPPENING EVERYWHERE!
Check out this list of additional Yiddish-themed events and resources.

ARE YOU INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE ABOUT ELLEN CASSEDY'S TRANSLATION WORK?
Check out these translations available online: 

Stories by Yenta Mash: 
https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/language-literature-culture/yiddish-translation/landing
https://jewishcurrents.org/bread-yenta-mash/
https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/language-literature-culture/pakn-treger/2017-pakn-treger-translation-issue/seder-taiga
 
Stories by Blume Lempel (translated with Yermiyahu Ahron Taub):
https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/language-literature-culture/pakn-treger/neighbors-over-fence
https://ingeveb.org/texts-and-translations/the-debt

An article on Lempel by Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub from the Yiddish Book Center’s magazine, Pakn Treger:
https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/modern-in-autumn-blume-lempel
 
A podcast Ellen and Yermiyahu did that just came out (episode 3 “The Death of My Aunt”):
https://www.theatredybbuk.org/podcast