The Distorted Mirror: What Yiddish Cartoons Reveal about Jewish Life in the early 20th Century

REGISTRATION CLOSED, WALK UPS WELCOME: ABOUT THIS LECTURE: For many centuries, Jews were the target of antisemitic visuals, images that framed them negatively as one-dimensional figures. It is only with the advent of the Yiddish press that Jewish artists began to develop a visual language with which they were able to describe their own communities. Yiddish cartoons became a unique forum that considered all aspects of cultural and political life, as well as a number of little known scandals that occurred in Yiddish-speaking communities which historians have mostly ignored.

ABOUT THIS SPEAKER: Eddy Portnoy received his Ph.D. from the Jewish Theological Seminary. A specialist in Jewish popular culture, he has taught at Rutgers University and currently serves as academic adviser for the Max Weinreich Center and exhibition curator at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.