Description:
Describes the role of traditional Jewish texts in the development of modern Yiddish literature, as well as the closely related development of modern Hebrew literature.
Brief description: Jordan D. Finkin is Cowley Lecturer in Post-Biblical Hebrew at the University of Oxford.
Review Quotes:
"In this brilliant new book, Jordan Finkin illuminates with great flair and precision the many ways in which Talmudic discourse has shaped Yiddish language and literature, from the smallest peculiarities of Yiddish syntax to its largest cultural and discursive formations--the orchestrated associative digressions, the argumentative style, the entire cultural world known as 'derekh hashas, ' the way of the Talmud."
--Naomi Seidman, University of California, Berkeley