Yiddish Civilisation: The Rise and Fall of a Forgotten Nation

Yiddish culture and civilisation began in the 13th century and ended in the middle of the 20th, when the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact delivered half of Poland's Jews into the arms of Hitler's mass murderers. It covered a huge area of eastern Europe, from Riga on the Baltic to Odessa on the Black Sea (today's Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Belarus, Ukraine and western Russia). The culturally vibrant, economically successful, intellectually adventurous and largely self-ruling medieval Yiddish society was cut short by the Chmielnitzky Massacres of 1648-56 in which 100,000 Jews were killed. Those that were left were forced to spread out to the small towns (shtetls) and villages. Russian pogroms from the 1880s produced Zionism, emigration and agitation. Paul Kriwaczek describes the development, over the centuries, of Yiddish language and names, religion, occupations, art and music, literature and food. The book ends by describing how the Yiddish way of life became one of the foundation stones of modern American, and therefore of world, culture.
ASIN: 0297829416
VSKU: BVV.0297829416.A
Condition: Acceptable
Author/Artist:Kriwaczek, Paul
Binding: Hardcover
Note: Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.
Condition Notes: The item is very worn but is perfectly usable. Signs of wear can include aesthetic issues such as scratches, dents, worn and creased covers, folded page corners and minor liquid stains. All pages and the cover are intact, but the dust cover may be missing. Pages may include moderate to heavy amount of notes and highlighting, but the text is not obscured or unreadable. Page edges may have foxing age related spots and browning . May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.