ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question: What criteria did Vivi Lachs and Barry Smerin use when deciding which sketches to include in the book?
East End Jews: Sketches from the London Yiddish Press is an anthology of brief articles from Yiddish newspapers and magazines published in London. The editors and translators, Vivi Lachs and Barry Smerin, have selected more than 50 pieces, and organized them into five chronological sections, ranging from the 1880s and the rise of the East European Jewish immigrant community in East London, to its last years in the 1950s. The book includes an introduction by Lachs, notes on the authors, and a list of titles and dates of the publications from which the sketches were drawn. The articles, known as feuilletons, are entertaining and often moving. Detailed historical context, biographies of each writer, and evocative illustrations support this collection of urban sketches that offer glimpses into the social and cultural life in London’s Jewish East End, and enrich our understanding of this historical Jewish immigrant district.
Dr. Vivi Lachs is a social and cultural historian and a Yiddish performer and translator. She is the author of Whitechapel Noise: Jewish Immigrant Life in Yiddish Song and Verse, London 1884-1914 and editor and translator of London Yiddishtown: East End Jewish Life in Yiddish Sketch and Story, 1930-1950. She co-runs the Great Yiddish Parade bringing Yiddish songs of union activism and protest from the 1890s back onto the streets of London with a marching band and chorus. She also sings with the bands Klezmer Klub and Katsha’nes and leads historical tours of the old Yiddish East End.
Interested in a tour? You can contact Vivi here: vivilachs@gmail.com
