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Yiddishkeit: Jewish Vernacular and the New Land Hardcover – September 1, 2011

by Harvey Pekar (Editor), Paul Buhle (Editor), Neal Gabler (Introduction),

27 ratings

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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

Print length

240 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Harry N. Abrams
Publication date

September 1, 2011
Grade level

Preschool and up
Reading age

Baby and up
Dimensions

6.63 x 1 x 10.19 inches
ISBN-10

0810997495
ISBN-13

978-0810997493
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Paul Buhle, retired from Brown University, has written and edited 42 books, including the award-winning Art of Harvey Kurtzman, Jews and American Comics, and the three-volume Jews and American Popular Culture. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin. Harvey Pekar (1939–2010) is best known for his autobiographical comic book series American Splendor and Our Cancer Year, which was made into an Academy Award–nominated film starring Paul Giamatti in 2003.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harry N. Abrams; Bilingual edition (September 1, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0810997495
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0810997493
Reading age ‏ : ‎ Baby and up
Grade level ‏ : ‎ Preschool and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.9 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.63 x 1 x 10.19 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #864,937 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #603 in Jewish Social Studies
- #1,379 in Historical & Biographical Fiction Graphic Novels
- #3,294 in European Literature (Books)

Customer Reviews:
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Daniel Gezari

An amazing book

Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2015

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Yiddishkeit is a kind of Rosetta Stone to the essentially lost secular culture of the European and later New York Jews. Surprisingly, it's mostly a "graphic novel" (cartoon format), but it's not a novel. It's a historical guide to the greatest writers, thinkers and social activists of the non-religious Yiddish-speaking world of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Also included many very entertaining sections in conventional text, in the form of plays, stories and glossaries of Yiddish vernacular. Required reading for any thinking person, young or old. This is a very important book. Highly recommended.

6 people found this helpful

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David F. Marshall

A Story-Board Introduction to Yiddish Life and Letters

Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2014

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Probably the best introduction to "mamaloshen" (Yiddish)
life and particularly the rich literature of novels, short stories,
and drama. A necessity for anyone who is interested in one
of the major literatures written in Europe and more specifically
in America in the last century. Absolutely fascinating!

One person found this helpful

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gbl24

Great for Yiddishah Jews

Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2018

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Great book for those that like Yiddish sayings

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Mae

Missing a few big topics...

Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2011

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"Yiddishkeit," published last week, is a mixed bag of short vignettes about Yiddish authors; one-page summaries of various historic trends (especially political activism and persecution of left-wingers); graphic-novel treatments of the lives of movie script writers, actors, and other entertainment figures; and one full-length play containing excerpts from many Yiddish theater works. And more.

The visual treatment of literary and biographical topics in "Yiddishkeit" is fun, but very truncated: for example, it offers a 3-page summary of Aaron Lansky's memoir "Outwitting History," (which I think is actually a better treatment of Yiddish in America) and a 12-page "retelling" in graphic form of the 1937 Yiddish movie "Greenfields." And more.

The introductory narratives in this book suggests that it is some type of comprehensive treatment of Yiddish culture - _Yiddishkeit_ - in America. It implies that there will be material about the exceptionality of Yiddish as a language, though I don't think that's really achieved. And while it covers a lot of other cultural material, it also misses some very big topics, and I think it misses them with a bias.

Would you be surprised if I thought it was biased against women? That it missed the presence of Yiddish-speaking Jews and Yiddish culture outside of New York and Hollywood? That it skipped over the existence of scholars of Yiddish language and culture prior to the current academic version of Yiddish studies?

Here are some of the topics that might make a more complete story of Yiddishkeit that are dismissed, glossed over, or not there at all:
* Food. I'm sure there's a mention of a New York deli somewhere, but here's one example of how this doesn't exactly deal with the food of the Yiddish speakers in America - no mention of the adoption of the bagel by the American mainstream. I wish it had a graphic bio of Ari Weinzweig of Zingerman's Deli!
* Social Work. The political activist Yiddishists are reasonably well-covered but the way that Jews trying to help the poor immigrants to assimilate and in the process inventing the modern field of social work doesn't appear. A graphic treatment of the Settlement Cookbook would be welcome here. But in this world, women don't count, I fear, unless they are minor writers or actors.
* Organizations of immigrants from specific communities (Landsmanshaften). These receive a passing mention, but don't do justice to them. How about a graphic treatment showing how they were critical in the process of transmitting Yiddish culture from immigrants to their families.
* The Forward and Abraham Cahan. Sure the Forward is mentioned, but its importance is dismissed. For example, Hershl Hartman is listed as "the first native-born Yiddish journalist" (p. p.229) and his work is more than half a century after that of native-speaker Cahan and others writing in either or both languages. If the real issue is what Yiddishkeit gave to American culture, a description of the influence of the "Bintel Brief" - the Forward's advice column - would be in order.
* English-language novels about Yiddishkeit. Cahan also wrote very important novels about Yiddish-speaking immigrants - in English. Several other writers also did, but there's little or nothing about them. There's much more about the European Yiddish novelists, and lots of attacks on I.B.Singer.
* YIVO. Scholarly Yiddish study and attempt to document the language began in Vilna and moved to New York when hounded out of Europe. A bit more detail on this would fill out the story.

I'm no scholar at all. I can't imagine how many more topics would be needed to deserve the claims this book makes about its achievement.

15 people found this helpful

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Evelyn Weissman

Yiddishkeit

Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2013

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I love this book! It was a trip down memory lane for me as well as a visual adventure.
Well written, well illustrated and packed with information and humor.

2 people found this helpful

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bernard5293

a dank!

Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2014

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Seen from Europe, it's perhaps only in USA than Yiddish is still a living language: this book offers a brillant evidence, with comic strips as modern media, how transplant succeeeded!

Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2017

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Very good.

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TrixieTop Contributor: Watercolor Painting

Fabulously informative, entertaining, enlightening book!

Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2017

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Found this at Santa Monica Library. Thought it would be a fun journey. Instead, I found myself discovering so much about my heritage. Which I never knew. This book is FULL of so much insightful info. I just had to own it. I know I'll be reading and re-reading it.

Yiddish culture is woven into American life in so many ways. I'm sure that's true for many in Europe as well. I had no idea!!

Seller sent promptly. Great price and condition. Good stuff!

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