⭐️ Presented by the Program in Jewish Studies and the Department of German & Russian

 “Sex, Violence and Speech in the Holocaust: The Case of Yiddish” 

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

Hannah Pollin-Galay is Associate Professor, Department of Literature, Tel Aviv University and Director of the Goldreich Family Institute for Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture. She is the author of Occupied Words: What the Holocaust Did to Yiddish. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024.

Light refreshments will be served.