The Yiddish Language and the Hasidic Story

FAIN: FB-10510-70

Sanford Pinsker
Franklin and Marshall College (Lancaster, PA 17603-2827)

Fellow to study Yiddish and live in a Hasidic community to study the traditional Hasidic culture. ABSTRACT: Study of Yiddish and the Hasidic community: 1) formal classes at Cornell to gain reading fluency in Yiddish; and 2) living in a Hasidic (community) where song, story and dance are still part of the cultural pattern. Fellow's previous work in Yiddish literature has been entirely comparative in nature, designed for an American reader interested in the work of, say, Bellow or Malamud, but not conversant with Talmud/Torah or the rudiments of Yiddish. As fellow's work deals increasingly with relationship between Yiddish literature and the oral tradition of the Hasidim, it is necessary for him to have actual contact with the Hasidic culture.