From the Cellar to the Top Floor: Yiddish and Hebrew Press in the United States during the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century

Max Weinreich Fellowship Lecture in American Jewish Studies The Rose and Isidore Drench Memorial Fellowship and the Dora and Mayer Tendler Endowed Fellowship Admission: Free

This lecture will examine the beginnings of the Hebrew Alphabet periodical press in the United States during the second half of the 19th century and its establishment there – a fascinating chapter in the social and cultural history of American Jewry. How Jewish immigrants brought a major aspect of their bilingual tradition in Hebrew and Yiddish from Eastern Europe to America will also be explored, as will the means by which Jewish immigrants established their linguistic heritage and unique culture while acclimating to life in the New World. This lecture will focus on the formative years of the emergence of the Hebrew printing press in the United States and its effect on Jewish publishing and identity.

About the Speaker

Yael Levi is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her dissertation focuses on the emergence of the Hebrew and Yiddish print press in the United States during the second half of the Nineteenth Century. More specifically, her work examines the cultural, economic, and material aspects of the alphabet press in urban America, mainly in New York, between 1870-1900.