This article examines the Yiddish translation of the popular series of novels for Haredi children by Ruth Rappaport which was first published in the early 2000s in Israeli Hebrew under the title עשרים ואחד בבית אחד (Twenty-One in One House). English and Yiddish versions of many of the novels in the series have been produced, with a French translation recently launched. Study of the Yiddish version, compared with the English translation and Hebrew original, offers fascinating insights into contemporary Yiddish-speaking Haredi culture and literary practices. While the English version is a close translation with foreignization being the main strategy, the Yiddish one is a heavily domesticated adaptation composed in line with the long-standing Yiddish tradition referred to as fartaytsht un farbesert–translated and improved. Indeed, the Yiddish version contains various kinds of modifications ranging from minor details to substantial elements of the story. Many of these modifications can be interpreted as ways of reframing the text for a strictly “heymish” Hasidic (primarily Satmar) audience as opposed to the more “modern” Haredi readership of the Hebrew and English versions. In other cases, the modifications transform the Yiddish version into a platform for engagement with broader sociolinguistic issues that are of specific relevance to a Yiddish-speaking Hasidic target market, such as changing cultures of literacy and the development of greater female agency within this context.
The article aims to contribute to better understanding, first, of the changing relations between Soviet and American Yiddish literary circles, and, second, of Soviet publishing policy and practice concerning foreign authors. The focus is on American Yiddish writers’ books, published in the Soviet Union in Russian and Ukrainian. The prime attention is paid to the cultural and historical context rather than to the lexical and stylistic peculiarities of the translations. Books by Sholem Asch and Joseph Opatoshu dominated the translations. In various years, Soviet readers also had access to works by Abraham Reisen, Peretz Hirschbein, Baruch Glasman, Moyshe Olgin, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Lon Chanukoff. Characteristically, the Yiddish originals of the translated books usually did not appear under Soviet imprints.
This study aims to present the forms and role of translation into Yiddish at the end of the 19th century. It emphasizes that, in the context of a predominantly oral language, translation was a major tool in the promotion and development of a written culture as well as in the redefinition of the boundaries of what is perceived as own and foreign. It analyzes the motives that governed the choice of translated texts as well as the major translation strategies (familiarization, Judaization, oralization, etc.). Finally, it offers a detailed analysis of three representative Yiddish translations that are opposed but complementary: that of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Ayzik Meyer Dik, and those of Five Weeks in a Balloon and Self-Emancipation by Mendele Moykher Sforim (S. Y. Abramovitsh).
This article examines the life and work of Yoysef Meyer Yavets (1832-1914), a figure largely neglected in scholarship on modern Yiddish literature, despite his immense influence on generations of Yiddish readers that continues to the present day. As a prolific translator of sacred Jewish texts into Yiddish in Warsaw since 1876, Yavets produced a monumental corpus including translations of the Mishnah, Ein ya’akov, Midrash rabbah, Ḥok le-yisrael, and Rashi’s commentary on the Pentateuch, among numerous other works. This research reclaims a place for him in Yiddish Studies, addressing a significant gap in our understanding of the role of Yiddish translations in transformations of Jewish education at the turn of the 20th century.The paper argues that Yavets contributed to a process of democratization of Jewish religious knowledge by making sacred texts accessible to Yiddish-reading masses, including women and less educated men who were traditionally excluded from formal religious education. Despite the seemingly conservative nature of his project, it is argued that Yavets’s work represents a remarkably modern undertaking in its scale of production and its empowerment of readers to engage with religious texts autonomously.Through archival research including book prefaces, family accounts, publisher advertisements in the Hebrew press, and newspaper obituaries, the article reconstructs Yavets’s biography and publishing history, positioning him as a crucial mediator of traditional Jewish knowledge during a period of cultural transformation.The article also investigates Yavets’s translation methodology, his conception of authorship and intellectual property, and the economics of translation in Warsaw’s emerging Yiddish book market. It analyzes how Yavets navigated the blurred distinctions between translation, adaptation, and interpretation, at times appropriating existing translations without attribution while defending his own work as original commentary deserving copyright protection.
