Après la Shoah, l'aide matérielle et le soutien moral des Juifs des Etats-Unis jouent un rôle considérable dans la reconstruction du monde juif en Europe. Cette vaste entreprise philanthropique se manifeste aussi bien de façon unifiée que par l’intermédiaire de réseaux plus ciblés, chaque pan du monde juif des Etats-Unis souhaitant secourir les siens et œuvrer de manière indépendante à la pérennité de sa vision particulière de la judaïcité. C’est dans ce cadre que les socialistes juifs américains du Jewish Labor Committee, organisation antinazie créée à New York en 1934, se tournent vers les rescapés du monde yiddish non-communiste et plus particulièrement vers ceux résidant en France, majoritairement concentrés dans et autour de la capitale. Paris, ville vers laquelle affluent à la fin des années 1940 des milliers de survivants de la Shoah, dont nombre de transitaires en route vers des destinations outre-mer, représente alors un des lieux d’espoir pour l’épanouissement de leur culture minoritaire. L’étude de cas de l’intervention du Jewish Labor Committee en France de 1944 à 1948 présente la singularité des préoccupations des bundistes et des socialistes de culture yiddish à la sortie du génocide et au début de la guerre froide. Elle observe l’évolution de leurs idées comme leurs efforts et doutes pour affronter les défis de l’après-guerre et perpétuer leur projet politique et culturel national hors de leur territoire d’origine en Europe orientale. Pour approfondir ces thématiques, cette recherche met en perspective le monde yiddish avec les mondes juif et non-juif, socialiste et syndical, qui l’environnent. Etant le cadre de vastes échanges de courriers, d’informations, d’hommes, de biens matériels et d'argent entre les Etats-Unis et la France, l’action du Jewish Labor Committee se prête à l’analyse de l’interaction entre des immigrés situés dans deux pôles d’une migration divergente. Inspirée par les recherches sur le transnationalisme des primo-immigrés, cette étude transpose les questions de circulations entre les frontières et de négociations entre deux environnements nationaux dans le cas d’acteurs se tournant non pas vers leur pays d’origine mais vers un autre centre de leur diaspora. Appréhendée via cette rencontre entre socialistes juifs aux Etats-Unis et en France, une telle approche transnationale amène à questionner les degrés de proximité entre deux centres de la « diaspora yiddish » au lendemain de la destruction. / In the aftermath of the Holocaust, the material aid and moral support provided by the Jews of the United States played a considerable role in the reconstruction of European Jewry. This wide philanthropic undertaking was implemented through several completementary channels: the major, inclusive and unified relief of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee was supplemented by smaller networks of aid. If communal action was indeed necessary and efficient, each part of the Jewish world of the United States was willing to rescue its kin and to act independently to ensure the continuance of its own meaning of Jewishness. Within this frame, American Jewish Socialists of the Jewish Labor Committee, an anti-Nazi organizaton created in New York in 1934, supported the survivors of the non-Communist Yiddish world. Thousands of Holocaust survivors headed to Paris in the late 1940s, many staying in transit before leaving for their final destinations overseas. At that time, this European metropolis represented a place of hope for the fulfilment of their minority culture. The Jewish Labor Committee thus significantly concentrated on those survivors settled in France, who for the most part lived in or around the French capital. This study of the Jewish Labor Committee in France from 1944 to 1948 describes the concerns Bundists and Jewish Socialists of Yiddish culture faced in the aftermath of the genocide and the early Cold War period. Focusing on the inner circles of those actors as well as their interaction with the different Jewish and political groups which surrounded them, I question how they responded to the stakes of the postwar years and how they worked to perpetuate their political and cultural project outside of their communities of origin in Eastern Europe. The action of the Jewish Labor Committee in postwar France required considerable exchanges: of letters, information, people, material goods and money. These exchanges provide the resources for an analysis of the interaction of immigrants settled in two centers of a divergent migration. Inspired by research on transnationalism among first-generation immigrants, this study explores the movement of ideas and people across frontiers and the negotiation between two national contexts. If such questions are usually applied to migrants’ connections to their country of origin, I adapt them in the context of connections of migrants with another center of their diaspora. In the case of this encounter between Jewish Socialists in the United States and France, such a transnational approach leads me to evaluate the degrees of proximity between these two centers of the « Yiddish diaspora » in the aftermath of destruction.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 214-226). Also available on the Internet.

Texte remanié de: Diss. Ph. D.--Comparative literature--Austin (Tex.)--University of Texas, 1992. / Bibliogr. p. [225]-247. Index.

Texte remanié de: Diss. Ph. D.--Faculty of humanities--Jerusalem--Hebrew university of Jerusalem, 1995. / Mention parallèle de titre ou de responsabilité : Books, writers and newspapers : the Jewish cultural center in Warsaw : 1918-1942 / Nathan Cohen. Bibliogr. p. [325]-337. Index.

Texte remanié de : Habilitationsschrift : Geschichtswissenschafte : Hamburg Universität : 1999. / Bibliogr. p. [421]-440. Notes bibliogr. Index.

This dissertation examines the life and work of the Jewish writer Uri-Nisn Gnesin (1879-1913). Living in Russia, using Yiddish in his daily life, and writing prose in Hebrew, Gnesin was part of a multicultural and multilingual generation, which was too assimilated to live the traditional life of its fathers, and yet, not able to break with it completely. For many Russian Jews, this dual identity, rarely recognized in modern scholarly discourse on Hebrew literature, resulted in psychological discomfort, feelings of guilt, and other traumas. Addressing this identity crisis, I show how the worldview of an assimilated Russian Jew is reflected in Gnesin’s Hebrew fiction. I offer an alternative view of Gnesin as a Jewish-Russian writer whose dual identity played a more complex role in his literary work and whose influence transcended a simple knowledge of languages or classic texts. It was not merely a language or a book, but the unique Jewish-Slavic atmosphere of small Eastern European towns that provided Gnesin with all the models necessary for thinking, feeling, and writing. In my study, I consider theories of canonization to demonstrate the reason why Gnesin has first and foremost been categorized as a Hebrew writer. Contemporary scholars of modern Hebrew fiction generally agree that Gnesin’s fiction is secular due to the non-Jewish associative infrastructure of his work. By exploring the historical and spiritual conditions of Gnesin’s generation, I attempt to overcome the limitations of such a view, which overemphasizes the role of language in his development as a writer. A functional analysis of Gnesin’s literary language maintains that although he found his best form of expression in literary Hebrew, it appeared mostly in the final stages of his writing. I propose that Gnesin and that whole generation of modern Hebrew writers used a special “hyper-language” consisting of three integral parts: a natively spoken language, a commonly spoken non-Jewish national language, and a written literary language. Ultimately, Gnesin appears to be a fin de siècle writer who used Hebrew language as a sophisticated tool to propagate his troubled Jewish-Russian experience. / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / English / Master / Master of Philosophy

This is the first study of the avant-garde Yiddish art theater movement, which flourished across five continents during the interwar period. From Warsaw to San Francisco, Buenos Aires to Winnipeg, Mexico City to Paris, and Johannesburg to Melbourne, the Yiddish art theaters were acclaimed by critics and popular with Jewish and non-Jewish spectators alike. These theaters had a significant impact on renowned theater practitioners around the world, who credited the Yiddish art theaters with inspiring their own artistic practice. In tracing how a small group of Yiddish theater artists developed a modernist theater movement with a global impact, my project provides a key and heretofore missing chapter in the history of the modern stage. I argue that the spirit of innovation that characterized the activities of the Yiddish art theaters and enabled them to become so influential was a direct product of the transnational nature of their movement. Operating in a Jewish cultural context unbounded by national borders, the success of these companies was propelled by a steady exchange of actors, directors, scenic designers, and critics across the world. Buoyed by a global audience base and unconfined by the geographical-linguistic borders that limited the national theaters of their neighbors, Yiddish theater artists were uniquely able to develop a fully transnational modernist theater practice. The global reach of the Yiddish art theaters is best exemplified by the Vilna Troupe (1915-1935), the catalyst for this movement and the primary focus of my study. The Vilna Troupe was the epicenter of the international Yiddish art theater movement throughout the interwar period. I demonstrate how the Troupe remained itinerant throughout its history, enabling it to reach an ever-larger global audience and inspiring dozens of other Jewish actors to create Yiddish art theaters of their own. Where previous generations of Yiddish actors had been subject to the double disapproval of Jewish and non-Jewish intellectuals alike, the Vilna Troupe legitimized the Yiddish art theater movement as a key contributor to the global theatrical avant-garde. / Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

Using Kinder zhurnal, an American Yiddish children's literary magazine, as the focus for this thesis, the intimate relationships between the Yiddish cultural movement which began in East Europe and the Yiddish secular school movement in America are explored. As a product of and for the Sholom Aleichem Folk Institute, a now defunct educational organization, Kinder zhurnal demonstrated the key philosophical tenets of the Yiddishist education movement as it evolved. / In an analysis of the Yiddishist philosophy of education parallels are drawn between modern Yiddish secular education and that of John Dewey in their humanistic emphasis and underlying pragmatism. Utilizing the parameters of the Yiddishist/Deweyian theory, an assessment to determine the practical viability of the Yiddishist concepts is made. Kinder zhurnal, as representative of Yiddishist philosophy and educational methodology, provides the microcosmic source for much of this discussion. Its close affiliation with the unique educational philosophy of the Sholom Aleichem Folk Institute provides the opportunity to examine the educational implications of teaching Yiddish as part of Jewish education.