Shmuel Rozhanski (1902-1995), editor of the Musterverk fun der yidisher literatur (Masterpieces of Yiddish Literature), produced one hundred beautiful pocket-size volumes. Published in Buenos Aires from 1957-1984, they contain the range of Yiddish literature's triumphs, laid out in the standard YIVO orthography, with copious footnotes and critical commentaries, all signs of Rozhanski's tireless devotion to making the best Yiddish literature available for a modern audience.
The 60th volume, published in 1974, contains selected writings of Max Weinreich (1894-1969), the preeminent scholar of all things Yiddish. Weinreich, involved in the founding of YIVO in Vilna in 1925 and instrumental in its 1941 move to New York, set the precedent for what Yiddish scholarship could be. Rozhanski's collection showcases Weinreich in all of his genius, with selections from his writings about Yiddish philology and early Yiddish linguistic research; his analysis of Mendele's translation of Pinsker's Auto-Emancipation as a case study for what makes a Yiddish translation yidishlekh; a large portion of his magnum opus Geshikhte fun der yidisher shprakh (History of the Yiddish Language); reflections on the promise of yugnt-forshung (research of Jewish youth) investigating the nuances of modern Jewish identity; a fanciful children's story about the evil letter beyz; an excerpt from his monograph Hitlers profesorn (on the role of German intellectuals in the Nazi movement); and essays in literary criticism.
Despite the breadth and unfailing rigor of the over 400 pages culled together by Rozhanski in this volume, the materials barely scratch the surface of Weinreich's massive corpus. Nevertheless, they do testify to his deep commitment to scholarship in and about Yiddish, forming the integral planks of a cultural movement which we would do well to remember today.