Hannah Pollin-Galay: Occupied Words

Happy New Year! אַ גוט געבענטשט יאָר

Highlights:

• Prof. Hannah Pollin-Galay is interviewed about the impact of the Holocaust on the Yiddish language and her most recent book Occupied Words: What the Holocaust Did to Yiddish (U Penn Press, 2024), which explores how Yiddish changed to express and memorialize the trauma of the Holocaust. Prof. Pollin-Galay also reads several excerpts from the book (in English). Prof. Pollin-Galay is Pen Tishkach Chair of Holocaust Studies, Professor of History, Professor of Judaic Studies and Director of the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide & Memory Studies at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. We reached Prof. Pollin-Galay via Zoom at her home in the Amherst, Mass., area on July 21, 2026. The interviewer, Sholem Beinfeld, is co-editor-in-chief of the Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary (Indiana University Press, 2013) and Professor of History, Emeritus, Washington University, St. Louis. His translations from Yiddish into English The Rudashevsky Diary, which was published as the November, 2024, issue of The Jewish Quarterly.

• Music
  • Leibele Waldman: Der Nyer Yohr
  • Instrumental music: DEM HELFANDS TANTS, an instrumental track from the CD Jeff Warschauer: The Singing Waltz

Air date: August 26, 2026