TITLE: How the Holocaust Changed the Yiddish Language, with Hannah Pollin-Galay 

 During and immediately after World War II, Eastern European Jews perceived a radical transformation in the Yiddish language. This perception inspired some intellectuals to create dictionaries and glossaries that deciphered the metamorphosis of Yiddish words. Others incorporated this new strain of Yiddish into their poetry and prose. In this conversation, Hannah will explore Khurbn Yiddish (Yiddish of the Holocaust) as a form of Holocaust memory. Following the conversation there will be a book signing. 

About the speaker: 

Hannah Pollin-Galay is senior lecturer in the Department of Literature at Tel Aviv University, where she is also incoming director (Fall 2020) of the Goldreich Family Institute for Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture. She researches and teaches in Holocaust studies, Yiddish literature, and the ways that these two fields intersect. The theoretical side of her work focuses on the connection between language, memory, and embodiment.  

In Ecologies of Witnessing: Language, Place and Holocaust Testimony, she asks how people remember differently in different languages and geographic contexts and focuses on the different memory worlds of Yiddish, Hebrew, and English; it is based on oral narratives. 

Her most recent release, How the Holocaust Changed the Yiddish Language, explores the perceived metamorphosis that took place in the Yiddish language during the Holocaust, as well as attempts to document and understand this change.