David G. Roskies

David G. Roskies ( born March 3, 1948 in Montreal) is a North American literary critic and cultural historian and internationally recognized author and editor of numerous publications in the field of Yiddish literature and culture of Eastern European Jewry. Roskies is the owner of Sol and Evelyn Henkind Chair in Yiddish Literature and Culture and Professor of Jewish Literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York. Since February 2010, Roskies is also director of the new Center for Yiddish Studies at the Ben- Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.

Biography

Roskies was born in 1948 in Montreal, where his family had emigrated from Vilnius in 1940 over Budapest, Athens, Lisbon and New York. Masha Roskies mother (born in 1906 in Vilnius) was the daughter of Fradl Matz, the operator of the " Matz - Press ", a publishing house, prayer books, Bibles and popular Yiddish literature distribution. The home Roskies in Montreal became a salon for Yiddish writers, actors and artists, which among other Isaac B. Singer, melekh Ravitch, Itzik Manger, Avrom Sutzkever and Rachel were grain as a guest. After visiting Yiddish schools in Montreal Roskies studied at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, where he received his doctorate in 1975.

Field of work

One focus of Roskies work is the Holocaust. In 1971 published Roskies Night Words: A Midrash about the Holocaust, one of the first liturgical texts on the subject at all. In 1984 Roskies Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture, for which he received the Ralph Waldo Emerson - price of Phi Beta Kappa. A companion volume, The Literature of Destruction, was released in 1989. In 2007, Roskies Senior Scholar -in- Residence "at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He is currently working on a history of Holocaust literature ( Holocaust Literature: A History and Guide ).

A second focus of his work since 1975, the year of publication of the published together with Diane Roskies The Shtetl Book: An Introduction to East European Jewish Life and Lore, the folk culture of Ashkenazic Jewry. Thanks to a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1985 Roskies began to study the modern Jewish return to folk culture and folk literature and published The Dybbuk and Other Writings by S. Ansky ( Yale, 1992) and A Bridge of Longing: The Lost Art of Yiddish Storytelling ( Harvard, 1995). In 2005, the 30th anniversary edition of The Shtetl Book is published.

A third focus of the work of Roskies is the Jewish search of the past. The Jewish Search for a Usable Past ( The Jewish search for a usable past) is the title of a collection of essays which he published in 1999. Yiddishlands: A Memoir, which tells the story of modern Yiddish culture, viewed through the lens of their own family history In 2008, the autobiographical work was published.

Roskies 1981, co-founder of Proof Texts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History, since 1998 he is chief editor of the New Yiddish Library and co-editor of Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization.

Bibliography

  • David G. Roskies: Night Words: A Midrash about the Holocaust. Clal, 1971. Free Download and text about the history of DG Roskies here
  • Diane K. Roskies, David G. Roskies: The Shtetl Book: An Introduction To East European Jewish Life And Lore. Ktav Publishing House, New York, 1975
  • David G. Roskies: Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture. Harvard University Press, 1984
  • David G. Roskies (ed.): The Literature of Destruction: Jewish Responses to Catastrophe. Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1989
  • David G. Roskies (ed.): The Dybbuk and Other Writings by S. Ansky. Yale, 1992
  • David G. Roskies, The Jewish Search for a Usable Past ( Helen and Martin Schwartz Lectures in Jewish Studies ). Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1999
  • David Roskies (ed.), Leonard Wolf (ed., Translator ): Introduction to Itzik Manger, The World According to Itzik: Selected Poetry and Prose. New Haven, Yale University Press, 2002.
  • Melvin Jules Bukiet (ed.), David G. Roskies (ed.): Scribbler on the Roof: Contemporary Jewish Fiction. Persea, New York, 2006.
  • David G. Roskies: Yiddishlands: A Memoir. Wayne State University Press, 2008
  • David G. Roskies: Holocaust Literature: A History and Guide University Press of New England (in progress)
Isaac Bashevis Singer Rachel Korn Ralph Waldo Emerson Award Phi Beta Kappa Society Ruth Wisse Integrated Authority File
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