{"id":87945,"date":"2021-08-01T17:05:14","date_gmt":"2021-08-01T15:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=87945"},"modified":"2021-07-21T08:54:37","modified_gmt":"2021-07-21T06:54:37","slug":"01-05-65","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=87945","title":{"rendered":"The Yiddish professor and female Orthodox rabbi sharing Yiddish children\u2019s literature with the world"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>The Yiddish professor and female Orthodox rabbi sharing Yiddish children\u2019s literature with the world<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Jordan Kutzik<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Image by Miriam Udel<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

A jack of many trades is sometimes a master of them all<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Speaking with Miriam Udel, the Yiddish professor at Emory University in Atlanta who is reacquainting the world with Yiddish children\u2019s literature, you quickly notice something remarkable. In one moment she sounds like a literary scholar and in the next, a Talmudic sage. It\u2019s not all that surprising considering her background: Udel has a doctorate from Harvard University in comparative literature and rabbinical ordination from an orthodox yeshiva.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yiddish speakers often say: \u201cA sakh malokhes, veynik brokhes<\/em>,\u201d meaning that a jack-of-all-trades is typically blessed with few successes in life. Udel\u2019s career runs contrary to the proverb. Her expertise in Talmud adds depth to her work on modern Yiddish children\u2019s literature, and her academic training informs her rabbinical interpretations.<\/span><\/p>\n

But what led an Orthodox Jew to embrace Yiddish children\u2019s literature\u2019s secular and leftist values? And how did an avowed feminist not only end up on the women\u2019s side of the mechitza<\/em> but become one of fewer than 100 orthodox female rabbis?<\/span><\/p>\n

A Hebrew School Nerd<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Udel\u2019s mother, Ann Robbins-Udel, nourished her love of children\u2019s books.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEven when there wasn\u2019t money for other luxuries, my parents would always scrimp and pinch to buy me a book,\u201d Udel said.<\/span><\/p>\n

No surprise, then, that her local library would play an important role in Udel\u2019s childhood.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the first sensory memories I have of abundance and plentitude is having a huge stack of library books when I got a new type of library card,\u201d Udel said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t restricted to two or three books but could pick out as many as I wanted. It was the first time I felt real abundance and plentitude which was only limited by my curiosity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Another place where Udel loved to read was at the Hebrew school affiliated with her family\u2019s reform synagogue in Miami.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was a \u2018Hebrew school nerd,\u2019\u201d Udel said laughing. \u201cI was really jazzed in sixth grade when we learned to look up chapter and verse in Tanach<\/em>. It was like I suddenly had this new superpower.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite her love of Jewish learning, Udel didn\u2019t always feel at home in her Hebrew school. Her family was a bit more religious than the synagogue\u2019s other congregants, and most of her classmates\u2019 families were wealthier than her own. This led to what Udel terms a \u201cproductive tension\u201d between her and her Hebrew school community. When she was in ninth grade, this tension led to a crisis of sorts during Rosh Hashanah.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe rabbi was giving a sermon against materialism, condemning those who believe that \u2018the one who dies with the most toys wins,\u2019\u201d Udel recalled. \u201cAnd right afterwards, someone gave a presentation about reconstructing a wing of the synagogue and how they were going to honor the donors. I stopped going to confirmation classes and left the synagogue altogether because I saw it as just a place to show off wealth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Udel became even more interested in her spiritual tradition. She began attending an Orthodox synagogue, which soon led to a new conflict\u2014this time between her feminist, progressive values and men\u2019s and women\u2019s distinct roles in Orthodox services.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI understood that if I wanted to properly grapple with these questions, I needed to know what was in our sacred texts,\u201d Udel said. \u201cAnd for that I would need to be able to read them in the original.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Far Miryemen a Matone<\/em> (A Gift for Miriam)<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Udel attended Harvard University as an undergraduate, where she had the opportunity not only to improve her knowledge of classical Hebrew but to master Babylonian Aramaic, study biblical exegesis and learn from \u201creally exacting teachers, Talmidi khakhomim<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/a> in a gender neutral space.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At the same time, Udel became increasingly interested in secular literature and the role it plays in transmitting moral values. As she formulated it to me, it\u2019s surprising that as the world grew increasingly secular, literature became the lens through which society examined questions of morality. Why, for instance, she wondered, do children in middle school discuss moral dilemmas in English class and not while studying philosophy?<\/span><\/p>\n

When Udel was deciding where to attend graduate school, she spoke with several professors at Harvard about this question. One of them, the Yiddish literature scholar Ruth Wisse<\/a>,<\/strong><\/span> suggested that Udel learn Yiddish, noting that the process of secularization occurred more quickly among Eastern-European Jews than nearly any other ethnic group. Comparing their secular literature to other world literatures, Wisse argued, could yield great insights into the effects of secularization. Wisse left Udel a copy of Uriel Weinreich\u2019s textbook College Yiddish<\/a><\/strong><\/span> with a note reading: \u201cFar Miryemen a matone<\/em>\u201d [a gift for Miriam]. Udel soon enrolled in the YIVO Institute\u2019s summer<\/strong> program<\/strong><\/span><\/a> <\/strong><\/span>and began her graduate studies in comparative literature with Wisse that fall.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWho is wise? He who learns from everyone.\u201d<\/strong><\/h4>\n

When Udel began working as a Yiddish instructor at Emory University in the fall of 2007, she knew very little about Yiddish children\u2019s literature. Searching for simple reading material for her students, she came upon a catalog published by the Yiddish Book Center<\/a><\/strong><\/span> with short descriptions of more than 800 Yiddish children\u2019s books.<\/span><\/p>\n

At first Udel planned only to use the material to aid her language students, but over time Yiddish children\u2019s literature became a topic of interest for her in its own right. As a literary scholar, she was curious about the relationship between Yiddish works for children and adults. And as a Jewish educator, Udel soon recognized that among the thousands of stories and poems for children lying mostly forgotten in early to mid-20th century Yiddish books and magazines were treasures that would be of use to contemporary Jewish parents.<\/span><\/p>\n

Udel told me that it\u2019s impossible to understand Jewish modernity without reading Yiddish children\u2019s literature. When I asked her why understanding Jewish modernity is important, she responded by citing Pirkei Avot<\/em> (Ethics of the Fathers, a collection of sayings from the Mishna<\/em>): \u201cWho is wise? He who learns from everyone.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Udel explained that the issues that Yiddish children\u2019s book authors dealt with a century ago are still relevant for contemporary Jews.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have to entirely reinvent the wheel,\u201d Udel continued. \u201cWe can see how they had a conversation about acculturation, about the challenges of creating a robust Jewish identity and living in a mostly open secular society. We don\u2019t have to adopt all of the same strategies and solutions they did, but we would be foolish not to witness the way our community grappled with these questions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Hoping to share these works with the world, Udel read through hundreds of texts, choosing examples she felt were the strongest works of literature or particularly representative of the canon. After seven years of compiling and translating, the fruits of her labor were published in 2020 as \u201cHoney on the Page.\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/span> The landmark anthology, featuring 47 stories and poems, is the first to give English readers a systematic overview of Yiddish children\u2019s literature. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"Honey
Image by New York University Press…<\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Taking inspiration from the structure of many classic children\u2019s anthologies that were used in Yiddish schools, Udel chose to organize \u201cHoney on the Page\u201d thematically. The first stories include the most overtly Jewish topics (holidays, biblical narratives and historical figures), but the further you progress in the book the more universal the works become. Udel notes in her introduction that this approach reflects a tendency throughout Yiddish children\u2019s literature \u2014 the authors wanted to emphasize the particularly Jewish nature of their works while also showing that Jewish children belong to the wider human race and inculcating them with universal values.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Socialist Shabbos and Class Struggle At the Purim Party<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

Udel writes in her introduction that Yiddish children\u2019s literature emerged alongside the conception of childhood as a distinct stage of life when individuals are more open to intellectual influences. It\u2019s no surprise then that Yiddish writers used their works to imbue a political consciousness in young readers. Udel notes that the bulk of Yiddish children\u2019s literature is a product of leftist writers from \u201cseveral groups of very idealistic people fighting for all kinds of progressive values, even if they saw different pathways of achieving them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Udel hopes that the visions of these authors will have another opportunity to influence children through her translations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was my intention to empower child readers through portrayals of kindness,\u201d Udel said, citing Mordechai Spektor\u2019s story \u201cChildren\u201d<\/a>,<\/strong><\/span> which tells of two friends who go begging on Purim in order to buy a pauper\u2019s daughter a new pair of shoes. When the boys stop by Purim parties at the houses of rich Jews in their shtetl, they are turned away but their poor neighbors give them alms.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt shows that the poor and middle class, unlike the rich, will never let you leave empty-handed,\u201d Udel said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Udel noted that it is often difficult to \u201cdisentangle Jewish tradition from leftism\u201d in Yiddish children\u2019s literature.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJewish socialism was deeply spiritual,\u201d Udel said. \u201cIt comes from a religious tradition in which a key tenet was kindness and a key principle of that kindness was to work to make a more just world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As an example, Udel cited \u201cThe Magic Lion\u201d<\/a> <\/strong><\/span>by the Bundist leader and educator Yankev Pat, which \u201ctakes the trappings of traditional religious observance and marries it to a tradition of progressive values, i.e., giving the worker a day of rest.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"The<\/p>\n

Image by New York University Press…<\/em><\/span><\/p>

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Illustration for Yankev Pat\u2019s \u201cThe Magic Lion\u201d featuring the rabbi riding the titular lion out of the desert. From the anthology, \u201cHoney on the Page.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

In the story, a rabbi is traveling through the desert on a camel as part of a caravan. After his fellow travelers abandon him because he refuses to ride on shabbos, he is protected from wild beasts and other dangers by the story\u2019s lion, who is observing his own day of rest. After sundown Saturday night, the lion allows the rabbi to ride him out of the desert to safety.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018The Magic Lion\u2019 fits right in in Hebrew school, but it also has an additional political dimension,\u201d Udel said, explaining that the animal\u2019s appearance can be interpreted as either a divine miracle or a symbol of the strength of workers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Udel believes that the stories in her anthology can teach contemporary children to understand oppression just as Yiddish writers hoped to inspire their young readers to become resilient by learning about their ancestors. Several stories in the collection portray Jewish historical tragedies in stark terms. Isaac Metzker\u2019s \u201cDon Isaac Abravanel\u201d<\/a>, for instance, follows the titular Jewish philosopher and banker\u2019s unfruitful attempts to prevent the Spanish expulsion of 1492. The novel, published in 1941, was written to comfort American Jewish youth in the darkest days of the Holocaust with one generation\u2019s tragedy substituted for another.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s something uncanny about the fact that we\u2019re living through a series of crises now and so many of these stories come from times of crisis,\u201d Udel said. \u201cI revised my introduction after Squirrel Hill (the mass shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue), and I revised it again at the last minute in March 2020 when the pandemic broke out. I had a keen sense of the historical resonance, the echo of history.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What a Communist Puppy Can Teach Today\u2019s Children<\/strong><\/h4>\n

American readers will hear such echoes most strongly in Khaver Paver\u2019s Labzik stories<\/a>,<\/strong> <\/span>which portray the humorous but often frightening adventures of a dog that is adopted by a Jewish family in Brownsville, Brooklyn.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLabzik: Stories of a Clever Pup\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, published in 1935 by New York\u2019s communist Yiddish school network, was one of the most popular Yiddish children\u2019s books in America but has never appeared in English. Several of the Labzik stories can be read in \u201cHoney on the Page\u201d and Udel is currently at work on translating the rest of the book.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"Labzik<\/p>\n

Image by New York University Press…<\/em><\/span><\/p>

\n

Labzik comes to the aid of striking workers. Illustration by Louis Bunin from the original Yiddish edition.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Udel told me that it felt more urgent after the murder of George Floyd to share Labzik with the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re stories for children that show protest as a positive value, condemn police brutality and show what kids, and even dogs, can do to improve the world,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

She noted that many of the issues the book\u2019s depression-era puppy faces still plague American society, citing growing income inequality, American Jews\u2019 renewed concern about their security and the importance for Jews of expressing solidarity with African-Americans<\/a>.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When she put together her anthology, Udel was concerned that the political content of some of its stories would turn off certain readers. So far she has heard few complaints. Just the opposite: some parents found the political content \u201crefreshing.\u201d Udel feels that a strength of her anthology is that she included writers from various political camps.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the stories are Zionist, others aren\u2019t,\u201d Udel said. \u201cSome families will like some stories and not others. The important thing is that it models what it can look like to have a really messy multivocal marketplace of Jewish ideas. And that\u2019s good for kids, too.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Becoming a Darshanit<\/strong><\/h4>\n

This inclination towards a diversity of opinion is reflected in other aspects of Udel\u2019s life as well. Despite her academic career as a specialist in modernity, Udel never stopped learning in the bet midrash<\/em> (Jewish study hall).<\/span><\/p>\n

As an undergraduate student she helped to coordinate the women\u2019s prayer group that met as part of Harvard Hillel\u2019s orthodox minyan, and before starting graduate school, she studied for two years at seminaries in Jerusalem for Orthodox women.<\/span><\/p>\n

For most people working full-time as a professor while raising three kids, writing a monograph and translating dozens of stories for an anthology would be more than enough. Udel, however, wanted to further her studies of Talmud and Jewish law, and in 2016 Yeshivat Maharat<\/a>, the first Orthodox yeshiva to grant women rabbinical ordination, accepted her into its Executive Ordination Kollel program for midcareer professionals. When she started, her youngest son, Emmanuel, was only eight months old.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNeedless to say, I couldn\u2019t have done (it) without Adam\u2019s (her husband: Adam Zachary Newton) support,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"Miriam<\/p>\n

Image by Yeshivat Maharat<\/em><\/span><\/p>

\n

Miriam Udel speaking during Yeshivat Maharat\u2019s rabbinic ordination ceremony in 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Upon completing the program in 2019<\/a><\/strong><\/span> Udel didn\u2019t choose one of the more common titles for Orthodox women rabbis like maharat (an acronym meaning \u201cfemale leader of Jewish law, spirituality and Torah\u201d) or rabba or rabbanit (both female forms of \u201crabbi\u201d) but rather \u201cdarshanit,\u201d i.e., a female expounder of scripture. As Udel explained in a Facebook post she wrote at the time, she selected the title as an homage to Rivke Bas Meir Tiktiner<\/a>,<\/strong><\/span> a preacher active in late 16th century Prague and the first woman to write a book in Yiddish. The introduction to her guide to Jewish law, \u201cMeinikes Rivke\u201d (Rivke\u2019s Nurse), posthumously published in 1609, describes Tiktiner as a \u201cdarshanit v\u2019rabanit<\/em>\u201d (a female interpreter of scripture and female rabbi).<\/span><\/p>\n

The title \u201cdarshanit\u201d appealed to Udel because she hopes that her role in the rabbinate will not just be doing what male rabbis have always aspired to do. Rather she aims to \u201cremake the shape of our aspirations altogether\u201d by incorporating the strivings of women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community and \u201cothers who have been shut out by traditional power structures.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo give that project wings,\u201d she wrote, \u201cwe need new language, and to give it roots, we need very old language. Serendipitously, \u2018darshanit\u2019 offers both.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Holiness of Secular Yiddish Children\u2019s Literature<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Udel\u2019s expertise as a darshanit is in interpreting Midrash, and several stories in the collection harken back to these ancient biblical commentaries. Levin Kipnis\u2019 \u201cChildren of the Field\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, for instance, is an expansion upon a legend referenced in the Talmud, tractate Sotah, 11B<\/a>,<\/strong><\/span> which describes how the Jews hid their babies from the Egyptians in \u201ccradle pits\u201d in the soil and the children emerged from the earth like grass. Although Kipnis\u2019 story refers directly to the era of the Egyptian exodus, it serves as a metaphor for educating new generations after the Jewish enlightenment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Udel sees in the story an example of how so-called \u201csecular\u201d Yiddish children\u2019s literature serves as a link in the chain of Jewish tradition, bridging ancient holy texts with modernity. Like the children in the story, who remain hidden until they are revealed to help establish new generations, Udel hopes that the stories in her anthology, long inaccessible to most Jewish families, will contribute to shaping Jewish life for years to come.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately,\u201d she said, \u201cI want to push back against the high wall between the religious and secular worlds. I\u2019ll daven<\/em> with a mechitza<\/em>, but I don\u2019t want to read with one.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Yiddish professor and female Orthodox rabbi sharing Yiddish children\u2019s literature with the world Jordan Kutzik Image by Miriam Udel A jack of many trades is sometimes a master of them all Speaking with Miriam Udel, the Yiddish professor at Emory University in Atlanta who is reacquainting the world with Yiddish children\u2019s literature, you quickly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[33,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87945"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87945"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87961,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87945\/revisions\/87961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}