Voices from the Warsaw Ghetto

Date: Jan 22, 2020 - Jan 22, 2020

Time: 7:30 p.m.

Sponsor: The Library

Location: JTS

Category: Book Talks Library Events Public Lectures & Events

A Discussion with Author and JTS Professor David. G. Roskies

Wednesday, January 22, 2020, 7:30 p.m.

Hidden in metal containers and buried underground during World War II, these works from the Warsaw Ghetto record the Holocaust from the perspective of its first interpreters, the victims themselves. Gathered clandestinely by an underground ghetto collective called Oyneg Shabes, the collection of reportage, diaries, prose, artwork, poems, jokes, and sermons captures the heroism, tragedy, humor, and social dynamics of the ghetto. Miraculously surviving the devastation of war, this extraordinary archive encompasses a vast range of voices—young and old, men and women, the pious and the secular, optimists and pessimists—and chronicles different perspectives on the topics of the day while also preserving rapidly endangered cultural traditions. Described by David G. Roskies as “a civilization responding to its own destruction,” these texts tell the story of the Warsaw Ghetto in real time, against time, and for all time.

REGISTER

Admission to the book talk is free, but reservations are required. Please arrive early and have photo ID available.

This event is sponsored by The JTS Library. Dr. David Kraemer, Joseph J. and Dora Abbell Librarian and professor of Talmud and Rabbinics, JTS, will serve as moderator.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David G. Roskies is the Sol and Evelyn Henkind Chair in Yiddish Literature and Culture and a professor of Jewish literature at The Jewish Theological Seminary. Since 2013, he has also served as the Naomi Prawer Kadar Visiting Professor of Yiddish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Dr. Roskies was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012. Dr. Roskies is a cultural historian of Eastern European Jewry. A prolific author, editor, and scholar, he has published nine books and received numerous awards. In 1981, Dr. Roskies cofounded with Dr. Alan Mintz Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History, and served for seventeen years as editor in chief of the New Yiddish Library series, published by Yale University Press.