Nick Underwood - Yiddish Paris: Staging Nation and Community in Interwar France

Table of Contents

YIDDISH PARIS

What Others Have Said about Yiddish Paris

Nick Underwoods in-depth analysis effectively captures the vibrancy and vitality of interwar Yiddish Paris. Using hitherto unexamined documents from archives in the United States, Europe, and Israel, as well as contemporaneous newspaper articles and advertisements, the author introduces us to the multiple facets of the rich culture that left-wing east European immigrant Jews developed in a period of significant political, economic, and social challenges. Particularly fascinating is his investigation of Yiddish theater and music, which both coalesced and transformed the community. Underwood argues convincingly that by balancing ideals of French Republicanism and diaspora nationalism in their cultural life, east European Jewish immigrants in the period between the two World Wars had begun to transform the City of Light into a new home for themselves.

David Weinberg, author of A Community on Trial: The Jews of Paris in the 1930s

I was one of the skeptics. Was there really enough extant material to write a book about Yiddish cultural life in interwar France? Nick Underwoods wonderful book answers this question with a resounding yes. At the intersection of French and Yiddish life, he has provided us with a fascinating story of interwar Yiddish cultural activists la franaise.

Nancy L. Green, author of The Limits of Transnationalism

In this innovative study of Eastern European Jewish immigrants in interwar France, Underwood explores the cultural endeavors of a population that deserves renewed attention in the historiography. Deepening our knowledge of both French immigration and Jewish life, Yiddish Paris places these Jewish immigrants on a national and transnational stage, showing how these political and cultural actors carved out new spaces for the expression of Yiddish culture in Paris.

Laura Hobson Faure, author of A Jewish Marshall Plan: The American Jewish Presence in Post-Holocaust France

YIDDISH PARIS

Staging Nation and Community in
Interwar France

Nick Underwood

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS

This book is a publication of

Indiana University Press

Office of Scholarly Publishing

Herman B Wells Library 350

1320 East 10th Street

Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA

https://iupress.org

2022 by Nick Underwood

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

Manufactured in the United States of America

First printing 2022

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Underwood, Nick, [1977-] author.

Title: Yiddish Paris : staging nation and community in interwar France / Nicholas Underwood.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021031391 (print) | LCCN 2021031392 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253059789 (hardback) | ISBN 9780253059796 (paperback) | ISBN 9780253059819 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: JewsFranceParisHistory20th century. | Jews, PolishFranceParisIntellectual life. | YiddishistsFranceParisIntellectual life. | Yiddish languageFranceParis. | Paris (France)Ethnic relations.

Classification: LCC DS135.F83 U53 2022 (print) | LCC DS135.F83 (ebook) | DDC 944/.004924dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021031391

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021031392

This book is dedicated to Annabel Kaplan and in memory of David Shneer zl.

CONTENTS

T HIS BOOK STARTED BECAUSE OF A COUPLE OF footnotes, and I thank Paula Hyman and David Weinberg for making those references to Yiddish theatre and chorus groups in their seminal works on French and Jewish history. Dont forget to read footnotes; they can contain more than supporting evidence. Inspiration for a project just might be in there.

Support for this book came from several different corners and in many different forms.

For all, I am eternally grateful. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Martha Hanna, who always reminded me not to lose sight of the French context within which my work falls. Lisa Moses Leff was the glue that bonded my approaches to both Jewish and French history. Because of our shared interests, it was often she whom I would first call about sources we thought had been lost. We shared many interactions that began with me saying, You will never guess what I just saw... Joel Berkowitz helped guide my ability to read performances and theatrical reportage, which sharpened my overall approach to cultural and social history. It was also encouraging to have another supporter who believed that lesser known and/or unknown, in terms of cultural activists, does not mean unimportant. Sometimes, the So what? question was a little different. Id ask, and Joel would agree with the sentiment, So what that we dont know who they are now? Does that make these people less important? In addition, David Ciarlos eye for structure and narrative was exactly what this book needed.

Several institutions provided research and writing support that have made this book possible. I have been tremendously fortunate to have had received support from the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder, through the Rabbi Daniel and Ida Goldberger Fellowship, Laforge Research Grant, Pile Fund Research Grant, and Beverly Sears Research Grant, which all funded the initial research for this project. A Millstone Research Fellowship from the Western Society for French History made specifically the completion of possible. A YIVO Joseph Kremen Memorial Fellowship in East European Jewish Arts, Music, and Theatre; a New York Public Library Short-Term Research Fellowship; and support from the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure were also transformative. In addition to these research fellowships, postdoctoral appointments at the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture at Leipzig University, the GHI Pacific Regional Office and Institute for European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Michigans Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies gave me the time and space needed to develop further, write, revise, and complete this book manuscript. At the GHI, Florian Wagner was the ideal tandem partner, and I am thrilled to have made such a wonderful personal and intellectual connection.