The edi­tor of this won­der­ful book of eight essays by dif­fer­ent writ­ers set them a spe­cif­ic task: to address not only the Yid­dish cul­ture that Jews brought with them from Europe at the turn of the 20th cen­tu­ry, but also what hap­pened to it (dur­ing the fol­low­ing fifty years) when it was trans­plant­ed in Amer­i­ca. The col­or­ful respons­es con­tained in this col­lec­tion show how the Yid­dish writ­ers, artists, pub­lish­ers, actors, news­pa­pers, com­posers, and play­wrights respond­ed to the unique social, eco­nom­ic, cul­tur­al, and even polit­i­cal con­di­tions of their new land. 

While all eight essays are wor­thy of men­tion, an indi­ca­tion of their vari­ety and charm can be gleaned from the chap­ter titles, such as: ​“Ups and Downs of Yid­dish in Amer­i­ca,” ​“Yid­dish Schol­ars Meet the Yid­dish-Speak­ing Mass­es,” ​“The Yid­dish Cin­e­ma in Amer­i­ca: A Cel­e­bra­tion of Jew­ish Life,” ​“The World­ly Sounds of Yid­dish Radio,” and ​“Images with Teeth: The Polit­i­cal Influ­ence of Art­work in Amer­i­can Yid­dish Periodicals.” 

This reviewer’s per­son­al favorites are the chap­ter deal­ing with Yid­dish the­atre in Amer­i­ca, writ­ten by Joel Berkowitz, and the final chap­ter, writ­ten by Han­kus Net­sky, called ​“Break­ing the Silence on Amer­i­can Yid­dish Pop­u­lar Music.” (The back of the book lists all the con­trib­u­tors and their back­grounds.) The edi­tor of this inter­est­ing col­lec­tion, Edward S. Shapiro, is to be com­mend­ed for his choice of writ­ers and sub­ject mat­ter. Abee gezint