Building and Consoling a Nation : The Yiddish Historians in Their Own Words. Selected Writings Newly Translated into English

Mark L. Smith

ISBN 13: 9798897830725

Published by Academic Studies Press Feb 2026, 2026

About this Item

Neuware - Newly-translated works from modern Yiddish historians that seeks to expand the scholarship about eastern European Jewry.In the early twentieth century, when the dream of Jewish cultural nationalism in the Diaspora was growing among champions for Yiddish, its leading intellectuals included the 'Yiddish historians' who helped to uncover the history of East-European Jews. Before the Holocaust, their mission was to discover and present the formative history of a living people for an audience of educated lay leaders, drawing where possible on Jewish sources of information, in order to help build and fortify a Yiddish-speaking nation. After the Holocaust, their mission became to console its surviving remnant with information about the struggle to survive under German occupation. This book makes Yiddish writings by these historians available in English for the first time, with translations by historian Mark L. Smith.The book also includes a revealing Conversation with Series Editor Michael Berenbaum and an informative foreword by Samuel Kassow.

Seller Inventory # 9798897830725

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Building and Consoling a Nation : The Yiddish Historians in Their Own Words. Selected Writings Newly Translated into English
• Publisher: Academic Studies Press Feb 2026
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798897830725
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 235W x 156H x 26D millimeters 235 millimeters width by 156 millimeters height by 26 millimeters depth
• Weight: 674 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Newly-translated works from modern Yiddish historians that seeks to expand the scholarship about eastern European Jewry.

In the early twentieth century, when the dream of Jewish cultural nationalism in the Diaspora was growing among champions for Yiddish, its leading intellectuals included the “Yiddish historians” who helped to uncover the history of East-European Jews. Before the Holocaust, their mission was to discover and present the formative history of a living people for an audience of educated lay leaders, drawing where possible on Jewish sources of information, in order to help build and fortify a Yiddish-speaking nation. After the Holocaust, their mission became to console its surviving remnant with information about the struggle to survive under German occupation. This book makes Yiddish writings by these historians available in English for the first time, with translations by historian Mark L. Smith.

The book also includes a revealing Conversation with Series Editor Michael Berenbaum and an informative foreword by Samuel Kassow.

About the Author

Mark L. Smith is the author of The Yiddish Historians and the Struggle for a Jewish History of the Holocaust (2019, National Jewish Book Award finalist). He is Resident Scholar at American Jewish University and has taught Jewish history at UCLA, his alma mater. He writes and lectures on Eastern European Jewish history, with emphasis on Holocaust historiography and Yiddish scholarly writing.