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Yiddishkeit
Yiddishkeit: Jewish Vernacular and the New Land | Harvey Pekar, Paul Buhle
4 posts | 3 read | 10 to read
Yiddish is everywhere. We hear words like nosh, schlep, and schmutz all the time, but how did these words come to pepper American English? In Yiddishkeit: Jewish Vernacular and the New Land, Harvey Pekar and Paul Buhle trace the influence of Yiddish from medieval Europe to the tenements of New York’s Lower East Side. This comics anthology contains original stories by notable writers and artists such as Barry Deutsch, Peter Kuper, Spain Rodriguez, and Sharon Rudahl. Through illustrations, comics art, and a full-length play, four major themes are explored: culture, performance, assimilation, and the revival of the language. The last fully realized work by Harvey Pekar, this book is a thoughtful compilation that reveals the far-reaching influences of Yiddish. Praise for Yiddishkeit: “The book is about what Neal Gabler in his introduction labels ‘Jewish sensibility.’ It pervades this volume, which he acknowledges is messy; he writes: ‘You really can't define Yiddishkeit neatly in words or pictures. You sort of have to feel it by wading into it.’ The book does this with gusto.” —New York Times “Yiddishkeit is as colorful, bawdy, and charming as the culture it seeks to represent.” —Print magazine “every bit of it brimming with the charm and flavor of its subject and seamlessly meshing with the text to create a genuinely compelling, scholarly comics experience” —Publishers Weekly “Yiddishkeit is a book that truly informs about Jewish culture and, in the process, challenges readers to pick apart their own vocabulary.” —Chicago Tribune “a postvernacular tour de force” —The Forward “A fascinating and enlightening effort that takes full use of the graphic storytelling medium in an insightful and revelatory way.” —The Miami Herald “With a loving eye Pekar and Buhle extract moments and personalities from Yiddish history.” —Hadassah “gorgeous comix-style portraits of Yiddish writers” ––Tablet “Yiddishkeit has managed to survive, if just barely, not because there are individuals dedicated to its survival, though there are, but because Yiddishkeit is an essential part of both the Jewish and the human experience.” —Neal Gabler, author of An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood, from his introduction "The hearty hardcover is a scrumptious smorgasbord of comics, essays, and illustrations, edited by Harvey Pekar and Paul Buhle, providing concentrated tastes, with historical context, of Yiddish theater, literature, characters and culture." —Heeb magazine
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megnews
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#BookishConfession: I can‘t stand introductions and prefaces. I feel like a kid told not to eat the cookie before lunch. It just makes me want to stamp my foot and skip it. Make it an afterword instead. I may be interested to read it after the good stuff!

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UrsulaMonarch
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Bailedbailed

This seems like a fascinating topic but I was surprised to find that it seems like it would work better if it weren't a #graphicnovel ! There's so much information conveyed hat it was overly dense for me. Also I'm not sure if it was just the #hoopla formatting but I actually had a hard time reading some of it (as may come across in the screen grab?)

alisahar I‘ve given up on reading graphic novels in e-book form. 😕 7y
UrsulaMonarch @alisahar I know what you mean! I've had a few good experiences with ebooks that were not otherwise readily available, but in general I prefer paper! 7y
batsy I'm quite surprised by how reader-friendly the Kindle is with graphic novels, because you can read it frame by frame and thus zoom in if needed. I'm not sure if Hoopla has that option? 7y
UrsulaMonarch @batsy oh nice! I haven't tried that on kindle - I don't think I've even had a graphic novel on my kindle! With at least some hoopla books I think the resolution is low so zooming doesn't help! 😢 7y
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MrBook
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#TBRtemptation post 3! This is a lush graphic novel with variegated formatting, making for what looks like very entertaining reading. This book traces the influence of the Yiddish language from medieval Europe to NYC's Lower East Side. 4 themes play out: culture, performance, assimilation, and language revival. Notable writers contribute to the comics found within. A unique and fun way to learn about linguistic history.#blameLitsy #blameMrBook 😎

winemom I need this just to translate parts of Legion that go right over my head. Detective Kinderman is very, very Jewish. 😂 7y
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