“Sex, Violence and Speech in the Holocaust: The Case of Yiddish” by Dr. Hannah Pollin-Galay
We are excited to announce our upcoming talk, given by Dr. Hannah Pollin-Galay, Associate Professor in the Department of Literature at Tel Aviv University and Director of the Goldreich
Family Institute for Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture. Her talk is entitled “Sex, Violence and Speech in the Holocaust: The Case of Yiddish”.
Family Institute for Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture. Her talk is entitled “Sex, Violence and Speech in the Holocaust: The Case of Yiddish”.
Please find the information below and the flier attached. We look forward to seeing you there!
Monday, November 18
Sproul Hall 912, 4:00 pm.
Light refreshments will be served.
During the Holocaust, ghetto and camp prisoners could not stop thinking—and talking—about the body. Hunger, disease, slave labor and torture all made prisoners hyperaware of their physical selves. Judging by the case of Yiddish, this new relationship to the body changed the way that language worked from the victims’ perspective. Khurbn Yiddish (Yiddish of the Holocaust) is saturated with new terms for excrement, for hunger and, most prominently, for sex. This lecture will explore new Holocaust-era Yiddish words for sex and sexual violence, uncovering stories of both desire and abuse. These terms illuminate the importance of new historical realities such as sex barter and loss of libido, as well as long-standing ideas about the Jewish female body
Sponsored by the Program in Jewish Studies and the Department of German & Russian
Related book by Hannah Pollin-Galay:
Occupied Words: What the Holocaust Did to Yiddish. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024.
https://www.amazon.com/Occupied-Words-Holocaust-Yiddish-Contexts/dp/1512825905