Historians will wish to join me in congratulating our colleagues Josh Fogel and Kalman Weiser on the appearance of their edited volume, Czernowitz at 100: The First Yiddish Language Conference in Historical Perspective, published this week by Rowman & Littlefield. It results from the stimulating conference they organized at York in 2008, to mark the centenary of the Yiddish Language Conference held at Czernowitz.
Here is the description of the volume:
Czernowitz at 100 represents a collection based on the proceedings of a 2008 international conference convened at York University in Toronto. Each chapter looks back at a portion over a long century, one marked with the mass migration of Ashkenazi Jews across the globe, two world wars, the Holocaust, the birth of Israel, and the rise and fall of the Soviet bloc. They assess the achievements and fate of those who participated in the 1908 Yiddish Language Conference that was held at Czernowitz, now known as Chernivtsi, Ukraine. Featuring contributions from a new generation of scholars re-examining eastern European Jewish life, the successes and failures of the Yiddishist movement are examined. The contributors discuss how Yiddishism”a fascinating example of language-based nationalism—shaped the political and cultural landscape of territorially dispersed Jews across Eastern Europe and the world during the twentieth century.
On behalf of the Department, many congratulations to Kalman and Josh.