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Yiddish Research: Poetry in Translation

Yiddish research guide covering general resources, article and books, folklore, genealogy, linguistics, literature, music and dance, oral history, theater, film, radio, translation and student resources.

Poetry in Translation

Below are some major anthologies of Yiddish poetry translated into English. Some are bilingual, some have an English as well as a Yiddish edition, and some have English translations only.

 

Bilingual (Yiddish-English) Anthologies of Yiddish Poetry

 

American Yiddish poetry : a bilingual anthology / Benjamin and Barbara Harshav, translations with the participation of Kathryn Hellerstein, Brian McHale, and Anita Norich. Berkeley : University of California Press, c1986.

A substantial bilingual Yiddish/English poetry collection.

 

An anthology of modern Yiddish poetry : bilingual edition / selected and translated by Ruth Whitman.
Detroit : Wayne State University Press, 1995. 3rd ed., rev. and enl.

Bilingual Yiddish/English collection of poetry.

 

Proletpen : America's rebel Yiddish poets / edited by Amelia Glaser and David Weintraub ; translated by Amelia Glaser ; with illustrations by Dana Craft ; special editorial assistance from Yankl Salant. Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, ; [Coral Gables, Fla.] : Dora Teitelboim Center for Yiddish Culture, c2005. 

Substantial collection of Yiddish poets of the left. Bilingual - poem texts are in Yiddish with English translation.

 

 

Yiddish Poetry Anthologies in English Translation, With Original Yiddish Counterparts

 

Pearls of Yiddish poetry / by Joseph and Chana Mlotek ; edited by Mark Mlotek ; translated by Barnett Zumoff. 

Translated Yiddish poems from the Forverts newspaper column of Joseph and Chana Mlotek. The original Yiddish edition is: Perl fun der Yidisher poezye / Yosef un Ḥanah Mloṭeḳ. Tel Aviv : Farlag Y.L. Perets, 1974

 

Yiddish literature in America, 1870-2000 / selected, edited, and with an introduction by Emanuel S. Goldsmith ; translated by Barnett Zumoff with Shane Baker ... [et al.]. Jersey City, N.J. : Ktav Pub. House, c2009. 

This is an English abridgement of Yidishe literatur in Amerike, published by the Congress for Jewish Culture in 1999 and 2002.

 

 

Anthologies of Yiddish Poetry in English Translation

 

Sing, stranger : a century of American Yiddish poetry : a historical anthology / edited by Benjamin Harshav ; translated by Benjamin Harshav and Barbara Harshav. Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 2006. 

Use this book's extensive indices of the inzikhist literary movement instead of searching original periodical publications. This is an all-male anthology. 

 

A treasury of Yiddish poetry. Edited by Irving Howe and Eliezer Greenberg. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston [1969] 

A classic, early, all-male anthology of Yiddish poetry in English translation.