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Producing Redemption in Amsterdam: Early Modern Yiddish Books in Paratextual Perspective: 37
Author(s): Shlomo Berger (Author)
- Publisher: Brill
- Publication Date: 23 Jan. 2013
- Edition: Illustrated
- Language: English
- Print length: 253 pages
- ISBN-10: 9004247858
- ISBN-13: 9789004247857
Book Description
Yiddish was the basic Ashkenazi vernacular in the early modern period. The vast majority of the population was not educated and Yiddish books were printed in order to assist them with keeping a solid Jewish life. Being a basically German language and never being a canonical language as Hebrew, Yiddish also functioned as a buffer language between the internal Ashkenazi Jewish culture and the culture of the environment. Studying the paratexts added to printed Yiddish books may teach us about roles of the printed Yiddish word in Ashkenazi society: contents and forms of books, their contextual framework within Ashkenazi culture, the world of Yiddish book producers on the one hand, and the envisaged readership on the other.
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Shlomo Berger, Ph.D. (1987), University of Amsterdam, is professor of Yiddish Studies in the Dept. of Hebrew and Jewish Studies. He published monographs and many articles on early modern Yiddish, including Travels among Jews and Gentiles: Abraham Levie’s Travelogue Amsterdam 1764 (Brill 2002).
