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Shtetl Revenant

JL;DR SUMMARY The new translation of Chaim Grade's novel "Sons and Daughters" by Rose Waldman offers a vivid exploration of a rabbinical family in a shtetl facing dissolution against a backdrop of rising antisemitism in 1930s Eastern Europe. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Yiddish LiteratureJewish DiasporaFamily DynamicsEastern European JewsTranslationMemoryCultural PreservationChaim Grade20th Century History

Places mentioned

Switzerland
"One son has moved to Switzerland to study philosophy (and has secretly married a gentile); another has moved to Biaystok, lured by the promise of wealth; a third, the fathers favorite, is drawn to Zionism and eventually moves to the Land of Israel."
BiaƂystok, Podlachia, Poland
"One son has moved to Switzerland to study philosophy (and has secretly married a gentile); another has moved to Biaystok, lured by the promise of wealth; a third, the fathers favorite, is drawn to Zionism and eventually moves to the Land of Israel."
Vilnius, Vilnius County, Lithuania
"The younger daughter rejects her conventional match, moves to Vilna for an education, and falls in love with a poet."
New York City, New York, United States
"After the Holocaust, Grade remarried and lived briefly in Paris and d before relocating to New York City, where he would remain in a kind of limbo, never fully habituating himself to the rhythms of American life."
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Cairo Item ID 62760
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Retrieved 2025-09-30 05:31:41 UTC
Curated 2025-09-30 08:32:58 UTC