Name: HBI/Jewish Library BAL: Miriam Udel, Modern Jewish Worldmaking Through Yiddish Children's Literature
Start: 2026-03-26T19:00:00-04:00
End: 2026-03-26T20:15:00-04:00
Location: Jewish Library of Baltimore

$HBI\/Jewish Library BAL: Miriam Udel, Modern Jewish Worldmaking Through Yiddish Children's Literature$

Winner! 75th National Jewish Book Award in Education & Jewish Identity
Registration to attend is recommended: https://bit.ly/ModernJewishWorldmaking
Miriam Udel’s “Modern Jewish Worldmaking Through Yiddish Children's Literature” explores the world of Jewish literature written for Yiddish-speaking children during the 20th century when the community clung to Jewish heritage while also working to help their children makes sense of being a Jew in the modern world. Udel elegantly traces how these stories and poems underpinned new formulations of secular Jewishness, creating a world for Jewish children to inhabit with dignity, justice, and joy.
Dr. Miriam Udel is an associate professor of Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture and the Judith London Evans Director of the Tam Institute of Jewish Studies at Emory University. She holds an AB in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and a PhD in Comparative Literature, both from Harvard University and was ordained in 2019 at Yeshivat Maharat.
HBI is delighted to have supported Udel’s research for "Modern Jewish Worldmaking". During her residency as an HBI Scholar in 2022, Udel explored the "New Girl", a central character in Yiddish literature, "a creature of freedom" who gets lost, then "finds herself and uncovers resources that exceed anyone’s wildest imaginings".
For more information, visit HBI https://www.brandeis.edu/hbi/