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Jews and Cities
This paper was conceived and written while I was a member of the Jews and Cities group at Mandel Scholion--Interdisciplinary Research Center in the Humanities and Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2009-12). I wish to thank all members of the group--Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, Aziza Khazzoom, Eli Lederhendler, Scott Ury, Dimitry Shumsky, Michael Silber, Yakir Englander, Naama Meishar, Dvir Tzur, and Sara Yanovsky for their insightful comments. I am especially grateful to Professor Lederhendler, a mentsh and a mentor. All translations from Yiddish are by the author, unless otherwise stated. Yiddish names and titles of all sources comply with the standard YIVO transcription. Abbreviations: DGK= Di goldene keyt; LN= Letste nayes; LF= Lebns-fragn.
Avrom Sutzkever,1widely considered the last giant of modern Yiddish poetry, was the founder and editor of Di goldene keyt, the celebrated Yiddish literary journal published in Tel Aviv (from 1949 to 1995). The journal was widely read in centers of Yiddish culture throughout the world. In 1959, during a visit to Montreal, a vibrant center of Yiddish culture at the time, Sutzkever wrote a report to his colleague Mordkhe Tsanin, 2the founder and editor of the Tel Aviv-based Yiddish daily newspaper Letste nayes, conveying his enthusiastic impressions: "Only here have I come to realize, once again, how important is our Tel Aviv-based work in Yiddish. Our shtetl, Tel Aviv, must and will become the Metropolis of Yiddish."3
Jewish emigration from Europe, from the second part of the nineteenth century to the last significant wave of refugees who arrived in Israel just after the founding of the state, created centers of modern Yiddish culture in the major cities to which these migrants came. Producers of Yiddish culture viewed their collective work as the product of these centers. This perception was most apparent during the interwar years, when New York, Warsaw, and Moscow flourished as the most vibrant Yiddish cultural centers. 4Yiddish culture was, of course, also being created at this time in other locations (such as Åódz, Vilna, Minsk, Kiev, Berlin, Paris, London, Buenos Aires, Montreal, Johannesburg, and also in Tel Aviv), albeit not to the same extent nor with the same impact as in New York,...