Antonio's Devils deals both historically and theoretically with the origins of modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature by tracing the progress of a few remarkable writers who, for various reasons and in various ways, cited Scripture for their own purpose, as Antonio's "devil," Shylock, does in The Merchant of Venice.
The rich variety of the English vocabulary reflects the vast number of words it has taken from other languages. These range from Latin, Greek, Scandinavian, Celtic, French, Italian, Spanish, and Russian to, among others, Hebrew, Maori, Malay, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, and Yiddish. Philip Durkin's full and accessible history reveals how, when, and why. He shows how to discover the origins of loanwords, when and why they were adopted, and what happens to them once they have been.
Panoramic in scope, Away is the epic and intimate story of young Lillian Leyb, a dangerous innocent, an accidental heroine. When her family is destroyed in a Russian pogrom, Lillian comes to America alone, determined to make her way in a new land. When word comes that her daughter, Sophie, might still be alive, Lillian embarks on an odyssey that takes her from the world of the Yiddish theater on New York’s Lower East Side, to Seattle’s Jazz District, and up to Alaska, along the fabled Telegraph Trail toward Siberia.
The starting premise of Michael Chabon's novel rests on a single historical factoid: On the eve of World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt suggested that European Jewish refugees be resettled in the Alaskan territory. From this tiny nugget, the Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist constructs a richly hued noir alternate history/mystery fable, complete with Yiddish jargon and gangster argot. At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption.
In 1902, scientist and inventor Kazimierz Prószynski made the first Polish narrative film, The Return of a Merry Fellow (Powrót Birbanta). Since then, the Polish film industry has produced a diverse body of work, ranging from patriotic melodramas and epic adaptations of the national literary canon to Yiddish cinema and films portraying the corrupted side of communism.
