New York: 'Yiddishlands' reading, Jan. 22

New Yorkers have a chance to hear Dr. David G. Roskies read from and discuss his new book, Yiddishlands: A Memoir, at 7.30pm, Thursday, January 22, at the Jewish Theological Seminary's Stein Chapel.

Dr. Roskies will lead the audience through Yiddish lands old and new by revisiting his personal and professional experiences and retelling his remarkable family saga in a series of lively, irreverent, and interwoven stories.

He is professor of Yiddish Literature and of Jewish Literature at JTS.

Born after World War II to the sound of his mother, Masha, singing Az der Rebbe Elimeylekh (based on “Ol' King Cole Was a Merry Ol’ Soul”), he was raised in Montreal, where his family had fled from Europe in 1940 and where their home became a salon for Yiddish writers, actors, and artists.

A product of that city’s Yiddish schools, Roskies today is one of the leading American scholars of Yiddish literature and a renowned cultural historian of eastern European Jewry.

A prolific author, editor, and scholar, he has published seven books, including Night Words: A Midrash on the Holocaust, which has entered its fifth edition; The Dybbuk and Other Writings by S. Ansky (Yale, 1992); and A Bridge of Longing: The Lost Art of Yiddish Storytelling (Harvard, 1995).

In 1981, (with Dr. Alan Mintz), he cofounded Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History, and has served, since 1998, as editor-in-chief of the New Yiddish Library, published by Yale University Press.

The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1985, Dr. Roskies served as the J. B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Senior Scholar-in-Residence at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2007. Dr. Roskies was educated at Brandeis University, where he received his doctorate in 1975.

This free event - although reservations are required - is sponsored by The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary and will take place in the Stein Chapel. For reservations, email Hector Guzman.