RT Article
T1 Kill the hen that crows like a cock: animal encounters in Old Yiddish
JF Journal of Jewish studies
VO 71
IS 2
SP 321
OP 344
A1 Idelson-Shein, Iris 1978-
LA English
YR 2020
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1853682829
AB This article focuses on a selection of Yiddish adaptations of well-known European tales, which were produced during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It examines the ways in which these Old Yiddish tales express concerns surrounding Jewish life in Diaspora, by envisioning strange encounters between humans and animals. The article attempts to untangle the complex discursive web of which these animal-encounter tales formed a part, and which connected notions of humanity and animality with those of religion, gender and class. I argue that in their depictions of aberrant animality, these tales drew on the identification of Jews and animals, as well as on the relationship between animals and violence, to grapple with the dialectical relationship between Yiddish literature and its adjacent Hebrew and German libraries.
DO 10.18647/3462/jjs-2020