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Book Information | About the book | Reviews | |||||||||||||
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Defining
the Yiddish Nation The Jewish Folklorists of Poland Itzik Nakhmen Gottesman |
In the second half of the nineteenth century, Jewish nationalism developed in Europe. One vital form of this nationalism that took root at the beginning of the twentieth century in Eastern Europe was the Yiddishist movement, which held that the Yiddish language and culture should be at the center of any Jewish nationalist efforts. As with most European concepts of folklore, the romantic-nationalist ideas of J. G. Herder on the volk were crucial in the formulation of the study and collection of Yiddish folklore. Herder's volk, however, denoted the peasantry, whereas Polish Jewry were an urban population. This difference determined the focus and pioneering work that this group of collectors accomplished. Defining the Yiddish Nation examines how these folklorists sought to connect their identity with the Jewish past but simultaneously develop Yiddishism, a movement whose eventual outcome would be an autonomous Jewish national culture and a break with the biblical past. | "This
is probably the most complete study of the Yiddish folklore field ever written
in any language. It surveys a tremendously important but generally neglected
aspect of the culture of the Jewish people. It is, in addition, an excellent
synthesis of an entire body of scholarly investigation and organization. The
book is interesting, well researched and well written. It is sui generis in
the field of English Judaica." — Emanuel S. Goldsmith, Queen's College of City University of New York Itzik Nakhmen Gottesman has taught Yiddish language at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Texas at Austin, and has a Ph.D. in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania. |
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| Raphael
Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology $39.95s cloth / ISBN 0-8143-2669-2 256 pages / 6 x 9 13 illustrations 2003 contents > introduction [partial] > extract > index > |
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