November 2019: Handpicked

Sophia, whose work focuses on bibliography, has participated in Yiddish book rescue missions around the country and, among other projects, has helped with the restoration of the Center's Yiddish typewriter collection. Now in her second year at the Center, she was named the Richard S. Herman Fellow. Sophia graduated from Wesleyan University in 2018 and is an alumna of the Center's 2017 Steiner Summer Yiddish Program. At Wesleyan, she double majored in German studies and Wesleyan's interdisciplinary College of Letters, and she completed a senior thesis on the Yiddish folklore collected by Y. L. Cahan and Shmuel Lehman. Sophia discovered Yiddish by roundabout way of a Jewish day school education followed by her German studies and a semester abroad in Hamburg. She didn't begin to study Yiddish formally until the summer of 2017, but has been making up for lost time ever since.

After delving into her selections, scroll down to read a short interview with Sophia about her choices.

Kadia Molodowsky—a conversation with Abraham Tabachnik

The whole conversation is worth a listen—it's Kadia Molodowsky!—but if you only listen to one section, listen to the fourth clip. Molodowsky's reading of her poem "El Khanun" ("God of Mercy") is simple, emotional, and breathtaking. 

Pakn Treger "Young, Gifted, and Yiddish"

Though the photographs are fascinating in their own right, what I like most about these images and the corresponding stories is the reminder that the fate of Yiddish has always been, and continues to be, in the hands of the younger generations. 

Oral History—Moshe Kraus "Last Night I Walked in Heaven" A Hasidic Folk Tale

'Moyshele Kraus,' as he refers to himself, has led quite a life, and this excerpt from his oral history gives us a mere taste. I worked on this recording as an intern when I participated in the Steiner Summer Yiddish Program in 2017. Listening to it again takes me back to that summer and to the excitement of hearing his story for the first time. 

Y. L. Cahan: Yidishe folksmayses

This collection of Yiddish folktales is near and dear to my heart because it was half of the basis for my senior thesis in college. Cahan collected funny, magical, and beautiful stories, some of which have made their way into English anthologies, such as Beatrice Silverman Weinreich's Yiddish Folktales.

M. Vanvild (editor): Bay Undz Yidn/Bay Unz Yuden

Bay Unz Yuden provided the other half of the inspiration for my senior thesis—more specifically, Shmuel Lehman's collection of folktales titled "Ganovim un Ganeyve" on pages 45–91. As one might guess from the title ("Ganovim un Ganeyve" means "Thieves and Thievery/Theft"), Lehman’s collection has a decidedly different tone than Cahan's, but the stories are every bit as entertaining. 

Q&A

Sophia Shoulson speaks with Lisa Newman, the Yiddish Book Center's director of communications, about her Handpicked selections.

Lisa Newman: What pointed you in the direction of uncovering this Kadia Molodowsky recording? It's always quite something when you hear the voices of the writers whose work we've read. 

Sophia Shoulson: That was exactly what drew me to this recording! I spend so much time with the books here at the Center that occasionally everything except for the words preserved on the page sort of disappear. But as soon as you hear them spoken—by the poet herself, no less—they immediately burst back to life. I experience that particularly acutely with this poem, this postwar, deeply intimate plea to God. The words themselves are already so evocative, and when I hear Molodowsky recite them, it's hard not to imagine her sitting there, trying to reckon with this enormous tragedy, and composing these words in an effort to cope.

LN: Was happy to see that you included the issue of Pakn Treger that focused on the role of youth in Yiddish language and culture. In the issue's editor's letter it's described as, " . . . a language of youth giving rise to avant-garde art and literature, radical political movements, and a counterculture that continues to speak to a new generation." How does this inform or encourage your work with Yiddish literature and culture?  

SS: It's funny, I think young people usually don't need to be told twice that Yiddish is a language of youth and counterculture. We see so much of ourselves in its history and in its contemporary manifestations. More often, it's my parents' and grandparents' friends who need to be convinced that my interest in Yiddish culture and the Yiddish language is the rule, not the exception. For me, it's intuitive. It's a mutually beneficial relationship. The language needs our energy and creativity to thrive, and we need the inspiration and sense of identity and belonging it provides for us. 

LN: What did you take away from Moshe Kraus' oral history—now and when you first heard it?

SS: More than anything, I just find his storytelling style—everything from his body language to the way he interrupts himself—to be so endearing! One of my secret goals in life is to hone my skills as a storyteller, and to develop a style of my own (though I guess it's not much of a secret anymore). At the end of my Steiner summer, we had a talantarnye, a talent show where we all had the chance to perform something in Yiddish—a poem, a song, a short skit. I actually chose to do my own retelling of this story. I think there's a recording of it out there somewhere. I'm not sure that I want to see it . . . In terms of the story itself, I do also find the whole genre of Hasidic folktales fascinating. It's always interesting to compare and contrast what different cultures and subcultures consider to be "morals," and how they choose to incorporate those morals into stories. 

LN: Well, this gives me a chance to ask you about your senior thesis. Can you provide a brief overview? Or share what drew you to the topic? 

SS: Oh ho, it's always dangerous to get me talking about my senior thesis! On one foot . . . I wrote about the relationship between the rise of Jewish nationalism and the development of Yiddish folklore studies in the early twentieth century. I was interested in the way that stories from individual communities could be redacted and anthologized, producing a collective national identity from individual experiences and individual traditions. Basically, it's what Jewish scholars have been doing for thousands of years: reinterpreting existing sources to legitimize their own ideas. I was drawn to the topic after taking a class on German fairy tales with a fantastic professor who eventually became my thesis advisor. I wanted to employ the methodologies I had used in his class to analyze stories with which I had a more personal connection. It kind of turned into an excuse to read and translate as many Yiddish folktales as I could get away with. (Four, by the way. That number turned out to be four.) 

LN: One passage from Ganovim un Ganeyve that resonates for you? 

SS: I'm so glad you asked this about Ganovim un Ganeyve, because I actually lifted the title of my thesis directly from a line in one of these stories! It's the first line of the first story, and in Yiddish it goes: "Azoy vi dos iz vor, azoy zenen ale mayses vor." In English, it's something like: "This tale is true, as all tales are true." And I find that sentiment so delightful! It's such a great bit of verbal footwork. Either you believe everything, or you believe nothing. Or: "If you are willing to believe any other story, you might as well believe this one!" And then the story that follows is so incredibly improbable, so clearly made up, but hey! If any story is true, then all stories are true! I used it as the title of my thesis, because, in addition to being a great little piece of sly Yiddish wit, it's also essentially the question I was trying to answer in my paper. If everyone is telling a different story, how can they all be true?