Joseph Opatoshu

"At the turn of the twentieth century East European Jews underwent a radical cultural transformation, which turned a traditional religious community into a modern nation, struggling to find its place in the world. An important figure in this 'Jewish Renaissance' was the American-Yiddish writer and activist Joseph Opatoshu (1886-1954). Born into a Hassidic family, he spent his early childhood in a forest in Central Poland, was educated in Russia and studied engineering in France and America. In New York, where he emigrated in 1907, he joined the revitalizing modernist group Di yunge - The Young. His early novels painted a vivid picture of social turmoil and inner psychological conflict, using modernist devices of multiple voices and mixed linguistic idioms. He acquired international fame by his historical novels about the Polish uprising of 1863 and the expulsion of Jews from Regensburg in 1519. Though he was translated into several languages, Yiddish writing always fostered his ideas and ideals of Jewish identity. Although he occupied a key position in the transnational Jewish culture during his lifetime, Opatoshu has until recently been neglected by scholars. This volume brings together literary specialists and historians working in Jewish and Slavic Studies, who analyse Opatoshu's quest for modern Jewish identity from different perspectives. The contributors are Shlomo Berger (Amsterdam), Marc Caplan (Baltimore, MD), Gennady Estraikh (New York), Roland Gruschka (Heidelberg), Ellie Kellman (Boston), Sabine Koller (Regensburg), Mikhail Krutikov (Ann Arbor, MI), Joshua Lambert (Amherst, MA), Harriet Murav (Urbana-Champaign, IL), Avrom Novershtern (Jerusalem), Dan Opatoshu (Los Angeles), Eugenia Prokop-Janiec (Krakow), Jan Schwarz (Lund), Astrid Starck (Basel/Mulhouse), Karolina Szymaniak (Krakow) and Evita Wiecki (Munich)."

Sabine Koller

1. Joseph Opatoshu's Search for Yidishkayt 2. In New York Velder: Yosef/Joseph Opatoshu- Constructing a Multinational, 20th Century, (very) Modern Yiddish Identity 3. Soviet Dreams of a Cultural Exile 4. Faint Praise: The Early Critical Reception of Joseph Opatoshu's in poylishe velder 5. The Two Souls of Mordkhe: In poylishe velder 6. In poylishe velder and the Brothers Karamazov: A Comparative Study 7. Such a Rag-Bag': The Historical Novel as Spectacle, neo-Hasidic Hagiography, and Pseudo-territory 8. A tog in Regensburg and Elye Bokher: Opatoshu's 1933 Vision of Early Yiddish and Medieval Ashkenazi Culture, his Scholarly-Yiddishist Models, and Means of Representation 9. A tog in Regensburg: Scholarly Research and a Novel's Outline 10. The Flesh and the Spirit: Opatoshu's novel Di tentserin (The Dancer) 11. Cityscapes of Yidishkayt: Opatoshu's New York Trilogy 12. Opatoshu's Eroticism, American Obscenity 13. Yiddish Exceptionalism: Lynching, Race, and Racism in Opatoshu's Lintsheray 14. Mentshn un khayes (1938): Snapshots of Jewish life in America and Europe 15. Literature for Children? The Case of Joseph Opatoshu 16. Bibliography of Joseph Opatoshu