Yiddish in the Cold War

Gennady Estraikh

• 1. Pain and Consolation 2. Soviet Jewish Life in the 1950s 3. Cultural Diplomacy 4. Imagining Soviet Jews 5. A Brave Face on a Sorry Business

...a concise, fascinating, and highly readable account of the role and fate of Yiddish during the Cold War...' -- Jewish Book World Jewish Book World This meticulously researched book is the first comprehensive English-language study of Yiddish in the Communist world after the murder of Soviet Yiddish writers on 12 August 1952. Estraikh's story more or less begins where everyone else's ends. For this alone, Estraikh's book is an important corrective to our understanding of Yiddish in general, and Soviet Yiddish culture in particular. Just because Stalin said he'd killed off Yiddish culture didn't make it so... Full of amazing research. -- East European Jewish Affairs East European Jewish Affairs Yiddish in the Cold War tells an important story in the history of twentieth-century Yiddish. The book's focus on the internal machinations of the editorial boards of Communist Yiddish periodicals, though, cuts short any broader observations about the Cold War per se... One hopes that Estraikh's new work will stimulate more research into Yiddish culture in the postwar Soviet Union. -- The Russian Review The Russian Review A carefully researched monograph about a hitherto hidden corner of Yiddish culture during a period of contraction. -- Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies