London Yiddishtown

London Yiddishtown is a book that packs in a great amount of information about what is now a lost world that we can only recreate from the literature (novels, stories, poems, journalism) of the period and old photographs. Vivi Lachs has done a wonderful job in translating a selection of Yiddish writing, and providing a commentary on it and its creators.

Well illustrated and full of fascinating biographical and bibliographic information, London Yiddishtown is an excellent introduction to three sadly neglected Yiddish writers and their world. It ends with the best chapter in the book, a forty-page essay on the Yiddish literary scene of the 1930s and 1940s that gives more attention to refugee Yiddish writers such as Itzik Manger, A. N. Stencl and Esther Kreitman.

This book adds to the growing scholarly interest in Yiddish language, literature, and culture outside Eastern Europe. Existing studies have examined Yiddish in America, Latin America, and Israel, among others.

Vivi Lachs’s excellent book is accessible to all.

Lachs’ collection is immeasurably enriched by photographs, illustrated maps, and an impressive depth of research. The scholarly essay, included at the end of the volume, is an important contribution to the history of the British Jewish community in this mid-century period, and a vital companion to David Dee’s recent monograph on interwar Jewish history in Britain

Vivi Lachs is a social historian, Yiddishist, and research fellow at Queen Mary, University of London. She was a Yiddish Book Centre Translation Fellow in 2019, and is also a teacher, a Yiddish singer, and the author of Whitechapel Noise (Wayne State University Press, 2018). She organizes the Yiddish Open Mic and the Great Yiddish Parade and has produced two CDs of London Yiddish songs from the old East End: Whitechapel, mayn vaytshepl, and Don’t Ask Silly Questions.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.