Fordham-NYPL Lecture Series in Jewish Studies: Nick Underwood on ‘Yiddish As a Zionist National Language in Post-Holocaust France’

Join us for a lunch talk in the Fordham-NYPL Lecture Series in Jewish Studies. Nick Underwood will discuss “Yiddish as a Zionist National Language in Post-Holocaust France,” with a response by Shachar Pinsker, Fordham-NYPL Research Fellow in Jewish Studies.

The largest Jewish population in postwar, post-Holocaust Europe was found in France, and it was diverse. France’s postwar social, political, cultural, and linguistic context was also unique in Europe because it played host to so many different Jewish migrant, returnee, and survivor communities. Notably, too, unlike some corners of the global Jewish and Yiddish worlds, the tradition of producing Zionist culture in Yiddish did not wane in the postwar years.

This talk will focus on the Zionist culture that was produced in Yiddish in France during the postwar years. Through an exploration of the journals, organizations, leaders, and events produced by these Yiddish- and French-speaking Parisian Zionists, we will learn how and why Yiddish remained relevant for Zionists. We will also explore the reasons they maintained Yiddish, even after the establishment of the State of Israel, which these Zionists were involved with and supported.

A light kosher lunch will be available.

About the Speaker
Nick Underwood is an assistant professor of history and the Berger-Neilsen Chair of Judaic Studies at The College of Idaho. He is a transnational cultural historian whose work focuses on 20th-century Yiddish culture in France. His work has appeared in several journals. In addition, his first book, Yiddish Paris: Staging Nation and Community in Interwar France (Indiana University Press, 2022), was named a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. He is also co-editor with Meredith Scott of a forthcoming edited volume titled Jewish Ideas of France: Migration, Diaspora, and Empire (Routledge Press). His current book project, Yiddish Culture, Jewish Migration, the Making of Post-Holocaust France, is an exploration of the Yiddish culture that blossomed in France after the Holocaust and Vichy, from 1944 to 1965. He also serves as project manager for the Digital Yiddish Theatre Project and managing editor for the journal American Jewish History.