David G. Roskies
David G. Roskies, a native of Montreal, Canada, is the Saul and Evelyn Henkind Emeritus Chair in Yiddish Literature and Culture and emeritus professor of Jewish literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. His major works are Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture (1984), which won the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize from Phi Beta Kappa; a companion volume, The Literature of Destruction (1989); A Bridge of Longing: The Lost Art of Yiddish Storytelling (1995); The Jewish Search for a Usable Past (1999); Yiddishlands: A Memoir (2008, 2023); and Holocaust Literature: A History and Guide (2012), coauthored with Naomi Diamant. A thirtieth-anniversary edition of his The Shtetl Book: An Introduction to East European Jewish Life and Lore was published in 2005. In 1981, Roskies and Alan Mintz cofounded Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History, and Roskies served for eighteen years as editor-in-chief of the New Yiddish Library. All Things Yiddish is an open-access portal to his personal and professional archive. Roskies was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012. He is the coeditor, with Samuel Kassow, of The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 9: Catastrophe and Rebirth, 1939–1973.
Content by David G. Roskies
Primary Source
Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture
Guide
Art and Literature in the Postwar Period
1945–1973Israeli art and literature reflected the emergence of a distinctive indigenous culture and moved from collectivist Zionist narratives toward individualism.
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Destruction, Rebirth, and Cultural Thought
1939–1973The years between 1939 and 1973 witnessed unprecedented tragedy and transformation for the Jewish people.
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Diverse Diasporas in the Postwar Period
1945–1973Jewish communities in North and South America, South Africa, and Australia navigated complex local politics while creating literature that preserved their Jewish heritage.
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Geography and Genre
1939–1973Postwar Jewish culture developed unevenly across regions, and language and political concerns shaped local interests.
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Holocaust and Post-Holocaust Fiction and Poetry
1939–1973Jewish literature developed individual rather than collective voices, as postwar Jewish identity was transformed by the forces of modernism and assimilation.
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Holocaust and Post-Holocaust Life-Writing and Reportage
1939–1973Life writing and reportage captured individual Jewish experiences in a period of conflict and uncertainty.
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Jewish Culture in Postwar Europe
1945–1973As European Jewish communities tried to rebuild after the Holocaust, they faced new challenges and forged identities distinct from those in Israel and the United States.
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Jewish Culture in the Postwar United States
1945–1973American Jews entered a "golden age" of cultural expression and self-confidence after World War II, with declining antisemitism and increasing political and cultural representation.
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Jewish Religious Definition in the Postwar United States
1945–1973As Judaism moved into the American mainstream, Jewish religious definition grappled with the social movements of the 1960s.
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Jewish Writing in the Postwar United States
1945–1973Jewish American writers gained mainstream success writing about immigrant experience, assimilation, and the trauma of the Holocaust.
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Language in Postwar Jewish Culture
1945–1973Language shifts transformed Jewish culture in the postwar period, as Yiddish declined and Hebrew and English gained prominence.
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Post-Holocaust Jewish Cultural Spaces
1945–1973Postwar Jewish communities created new spaces globally, as American Jews moved to suburbs, Israel established sovereign spaces, and a new European Jewish identity emerged.
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Postwar Jewish Life Writing
1945–1973Life writing in the postwar period explored the Holocaust, displacement and migration, cultural identity, and the deteriorating situation of Jews behind the Iron Curtain.
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The Aftermath of the Holocaust in Israeli Culture
1945–1973Israelis struggled to integrate Holocaust memory into national identity, as survivor literature challenged a preference for heroic resistance narratives.
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The Early State of Israel and Jewish Culture
1945–1973Early Israeli statehood balanced collectivist Zionist ideals with growing individualism and saw the emergence of a vibrant but conflicted national culture.
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The Holocaust: Years of Catastrophe
1939–1945Jewish writing in Nazi-occupied areas documented ghetto life, moral questions, and Jewish identity, while writers in free zones grappled with the unfolding tragedy.
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Visual and Material Culture in the Mid-Twentieth Century
1939–1973Jewish visual art flourished and diversified in the postwar period, reflecting the social and political transformations taking place in the world.