Daily Podcasts Video Research

Unwieldy, unnerving, and a masterpiece — the last great Yiddish novel has arrived

JL;DR SUMMARY Chaim Grade's long-awaited novel, "Sons and Daughters," is now available in translation by Rose Waldman after decades of anticipation. 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'.

JL;DR members get full summaries of all articles in the archive, including this one. Donate & start reading »

Tags

Yiddish LiteratureHolocaustYiddish CultureTranslationYivo InstituteChaim GradeEastern European JewryAshkenazi CultureGenerational ConflictModernity Vs Tradition

Places mentioned

Bialystok, Podlachia, Poland
"but rather the band of small cities and shtetls along the banks of the Narew River near Bialystok, Poland, and extending east to Vilnius, where the borders of Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus all come together"
Vilnius, Vilnius County, Lithuania
"but rather the band of small cities and shtetls along the banks of the Narew River near Bialystok, Poland, and extending east to Vilnius, where the borders of Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus all come together"
Switzerland
"In a later section, we meet Naftali Hertz, the secular Katzenellenbogen son who left for Switzerland."
Bronx, New York, United States
"After the war, Grade moved with his second wife to the Bronx, where he lived for the next 35 years, until his death."
Israel
"...the typeset Yiddish galleys were finally uncovered in 2014 by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the National Library of Israel, which had been named the executors of the estate."

Support this source

This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 48419
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2025-04-06 05:31:06 UTC
Curated 2025-04-06 08:30:34 UTC