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A New York celebration of Ladino aims to bust the myth that the Judeo-Spanish language is dead
(New York Jewish Week) — The sixth annual New York Ladino Day — which aims to celebrate and elevate Ladino culture in New York and throughout the world — will take place this Sunday at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan.
For the first time since the pandemic, the program will be conducted in person, though a livestream option is also available. This year’s theme is “Kontar i Kantar” — “Storytelling and Singing” — and will include a performance from Tony- and Grammy-nominated Broadway singer Shoshana Bean and a conversation with Michael Frank, author of “One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World,” as well as additional music-oriented speakers and performances.
“Music is certainly one of the domains in which the language is doing well and generating new interest and new music,” said Bryan Kirschen, a professor of Hispanic Linguistics at Binghamton University and one of the event’s organizers. (Kirschen was one of the New York Jewish Week’s “36 Under 36” in 2017.)
Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish, was once the primary language spoken by Jews on the Iberian Peninsula. After the Jews’ expulsion in 1492, they brought language with them throughout the Ottoman Empire — Turkey, North Africa and the Balkans. Today, the estimated number of Ladino speakers around the world — mostly Sephardic Jews — ranges between 60,000 to 300,000, from fluent speakers to descendants who are familiar with some words.
Sephardic Jews were the first Jewish immigrants in New York, founding Congregation Shearith Israel in 1654, the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. (It’s still in operation today at 2 West 70th St., where it has been since 1897.) Sephardic Jews remained the only active Jewish community in New York until the wave of German Jewish immigration in the early 19th century, followed by the mass immigration of Eastern European Jews that began at the tail-end of the 19th century.
Soon enough, Ashkenazi Jews quickly outnumbered New York’s Sephardic community, though Sephardic and Ladino culture continues to thrive today. Today, the main hubs for Sephardic and Ladino culture and education are the American Sephardi Federation and the Kehilla Kedosha Synagogue and Museum, a Greek Romaniote synagogue on the Lower East Side, said Kirschen, and there are large Sephardic synagogues in Canarsie, Brooklyn and Forest Hills, Queens that still conduct services in Ladino.
Ladino, said Kirschen, remains “a very living, in some ways thriving language, interestingly enough, particularly since the pandemic.”
Ahead of Sunday’s celebration — which is co-curated by Jane Mushabac, a professor emerita of English at City University of New York and a Ladino scholar and writer — the New York Jewish Week caught up with Kirschen to discuss the program, his personal interest in Ladino, and how Ashkenazi Jews can help uplift Ladino language and culture.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Kirschen, far left, leads a panel discussion during the 2020 New York Ladino Day celebration. (Courtesy Bryan Kirschen)
New York Jewish Week: How did you become interested in Ladino culture? Are you from a Sephardic family?
I’m from an Ashkenazi, Yiddish-speaking family. So I’m not Sephardic. But for the past 15 years or so, I’ve been doing my best to learn as much about and embrace Sephardic culture as I can, and learn as much as I can about Ladino as well. My own interest stems from learning languages — I’m a Spanish professor at Binghamton University and I have also studied Hebrew for numerous years. So when I first came across Ladino as this Judeo-Spanish language, it interested me for a number of reasons. Once I started to meet actual speakers, it became so much more than just about the language — it became about celebrating and promoting the culture, the history, the connections, of course the food and the music.
What is the origin story of New York Ladino Day?
The idea of Ladino Day came about in 2013 — to have a day when communities around the world would celebrate all that remains. Originally, the day was selected to be during Hanukkah. But because there is no real central organization that governs the language — though there are different institutions, particularly in Israel, that try to foster the language and help promote it — Ladino Day grew in many different directions.
These days, some communities celebrate in January, some in February, some still in December. The National Authority of Ladino in Israel has their own International Day of Ladino in March. But the important thing is that communities all around the world are committed to celebrating it in their own ways.
As far as New York goes, the American Sephardi Federation at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan started holding a Ladino Day six years ago under the direction of my collaborator, Jane Mushabac, who is Sephardic from a Ladino-speaking family. I had been separately organizing Judeo-Spanish celebrations at a synagogue in Forest Hills, Queens, so the following year we joined forces and started co-curating the program together and have been doing that ever since.
The theme for this year’s program is “Kontar i Kantar.” How is this year’s theme different from years’ past?
Last year, we did “Salud y Vida,” which is a common expression for “health and life” and which was fitting for the time. Like most of the world, we had to pivot for the last two years and hold the program online. That afforded different opportunities — we were able to bring in speakers from around the world in a way that was much more doable, and we were able to open up our program to the world. Normally, we like to focus on New York talent and language, but the previous few years doing online events we were featuring different voices from the Sephardic world, so many new connections were made.
Because of that experience, this year’s program will be back in person at the Center for Jewish History, but with a hybrid option. The theme is “Kontar i Kantar,” “Storytelling and Singing.” It will both acknowledge how important music has been to Ladino, and celebrate how, in recent years, there have been so many initiatives for people to get together to share their stories in or about Ladino and to sing in Ladino.
Most Jews in New York have an Ashkenazi background. What role or responsibility do you think Ashkenazi Jews have in honoring and preserving Ladino culture?
Yes, the numbers [of Ashkenazi versus Sephardi Jews] don’t match up. Still, Sephardim from Turkey and areas of the former Ottoman Empire brought tens of thousands of Sephardic, Ladino-speaking Jews to New York City at the start of the 20th century, but as a minority — as a minority within the Jews, as a minority-speaking language, etc. So as someone who is Ashkenazi, I understand the enormous responsibility that I have to represent this language in a positive and genuine way to others and to work with and uplift speakers of Ladino.
Like Yiddish, thousands upon thousands of Ladino speakers were killed in the Holocaust, and those who didn’t experience the same fate often gave up their Ladino to assimilate. So many speakers today, who are typically in their 70s, 80s or 90s — or maybe younger generations who know some words here and there like foods, terms of kin — haven’t historically been so proud of using their Ladino. So aside from research and teaching, I’m really passionate about encouraging speakers and semi-speakers to use their language and to take pride in their language and ideally, to give them a platform to do so.
Bonus question: What are some common misconceptions about Ladino?
Ladino is not a dead language — that’s something I’m very vocal about. There are all sorts of ways to classify and categorize languages, but as long as they are living, breathing, speakers and semi-speakers, the language is living. So Ladino is a living language, despite all the obstacles. There are speakers and there are amazing resources out there willing to share their language and their story with people.
“Kontar i Kantar: The 6th Annual New York Ladino Day” will take place at the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th St.) on Sunday at 2:00 p.m. A livestream option is available. Buy tickets and find more information here.
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The post A New York celebration of Ladino aims to bust the myth that the Judeo-Spanish language is dead appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Sex, drugs and Torah scrolls: At the Psychedelicatessen, visitors receive a powerful dose of art
Hypothetically, if someone you had every reason to like and trust told you that if you went up one flight of stairs, you would “probably see things you never expected to see, ever,” how would you react? A sane individual might feel curiosity or skepticism, tempered with a dose of fear.
However, if you are anything like the crowd that gathered at YIVO for the opening of kosher-pop-art-visionary Steve Marcus’ new exhibit, “Psychedelicatessen: A Powerful Dose of Art,” the answer is simple: you’d get your tuchus upstairs, and fast.
In the gallery, the dose of art was as powerful as the exhibit title (and exhibit director Eddy Portnoy) had warned. The walls had gone groovy with technicolor mashups of Judaica and LSD, Flower Power and Maimonides. Strange shiducchim were being made in that room: There was a yad, a ritual Torah pointer, flashing a peace-sign instead of a pointer finger; a drawing of the “Power to the People” fist wrapped in tefillin; a wall of famous-rabbi-themed blotter art; a poster for “The Grateful Reb” in which a skeptical-looking Hasid in a tye-dye shirt (presumably the Grateful Reb himself) stood in front of a colorful mandala. It was like walking through a Hasidic hippie’s hallucinations.
As it turns out, Steve Marcus is neither entirely a hippie nor entirely a Hasid, though he has had brushes with both worlds. Marcus was born in the Summer of Love, 1969, just a year after the original Psychedelicatessen, an East Village headshop, got busted by narcs. Marcus spent his childhood — maybe even his life — surfing the afterwaves of the 1960s. He read MAD Magazine and Cracked. He gorged himself on Looney Tunes. As a teenager, he dug into Comix, the underground world of illustration concerned with hippie preoccupations like sex and drugs. As for Judaism?
“About a year after my bar mitzvah, I took a long sabbatical,” Marcus told me. It was the day after the opening, and we were sitting on a bench in the empty gallery. Marcus was jittering his knees up and down like he’d had too many Astro Pops.
He grew up Masorti, attending shul with his parents on Saturday morning and then booking it to the Yankee game that same afternoon to eat non-kosher hot dogs with his dad. But when Marcus was in his late thirties, his father died of a heart attack on Rosh Hashanah at the age of 66. “He was blown out like a candle,” Marcus said. “It kind of rang my bell.” He decided to say kaddish for his father three times a day for almost 11 months. It was during this period that he started grooving with the ultra-Orthodox.
“The only people showing up to shul three times a day are hardcore,” he said. He had noticed some of his Haredi compatriates studying Torah. When he asked how much it would cost to study there for a semester, “they were like, ‘You want to learn? You just come!’” For the past 17 years, at least three hours a day, Marcus has done exactly that.
Since turning to Talmud, Marcus has kept his art kosher. He obeys halachic stipulations such as not drawing the moon or the sun (or naked ladies, for that matter). He says halacha does not limit his work, but makes its reach more expansive, allowing Jews of every religious stripe to enjoy his art. But other halachic rules rankled him at first, most of all the Hasidic man uniform. Marcus looks like a countercultural Tevye. He is grizzled and bearded, and wears a baseball cap as religiously as other Jewish men wear yarmulkes. On the night of the gallery opening, he was wearing a camo jacket.
Earlier in his religious journey, he consulted a famous rabbi about his fashion troubles: “I said, ‘This white shirt, black suit, black hat thing? I don’t think it’s gonna happen … Is this a problem?’” The Rabbi in question replied with an interesting analogy. “‘You need to think of the halacha like a box,’” he said. Just because some people were crowding in one corner of the box didn’t mean that that was the only place in the box to stand.
“Sometimes, unfortunately the world, especially the Jewish world, wants to put everybody in a box,” Marcus said. “I think it’s hard to put people in a box.”
Marcus plants his eye-popping, mindbending art in familiar cultural boxes — pop art, Judaica, Flower Power counterculture — and then, before you get too comfortable, he explodes them with something unexpected. He showed me a piece called “Daf Yomi Agin!”, a yeshiva-bokher take on Robert Crumb’s famous ’70s poster “Stoned Agin!”, a six-panel depiction of a guy melting into blitzed-out goop. Except in Marcus’ version, the man is a Hasid turning aqueous at the thought of restarting the Daf Yomi, a seven-and-a-half-year cycle in which you read one of the 2,771 pages of the Talmud each day.
“They have an expression in yeshiva called ‘breaking your teeth,’ right? Which is when you’re trying so hard to understand something that they break their teeth over it,” Marcus said. “To me, it’s more like melting my brain than breaking my teeth, so that’s why it’s like this slow progression to a complete meltdown.” He has done the Daf twice already. One time, he said, he even went to the yeshiva in Lublin where the Daf Yomi began. He said his presence shattered the minds of the Hasidim. “I showed up, and it’s like I look like the hair in the matzo ball soup or something. They were like, ‘How do you know about such a place?!’”
A lot of Marcus’ stories start like this: Two dudes of different walks of life collide. First they are baffled; then they are bros. The phrase “Hey, man” makes frequent appearances. Marcus told me stories about his Zuni friends out in New Mexico who invited him to a secretive winter solstice holiday called Shalako in which the Zuni build a new house and feast on a dish that’s “almost like a cholent made of mutton.” He talked about meeting author Ken Kesey (whose grandson, Caleb Kesey, printed the rabbinic blotter art), and painting his Jeep with a phoenix rising against a psychedelic background. He told a story about a World War II vet named “Buzzy Katz” he used to hang out with who taught him how to cut onions. Marcus seems down to hang with the whole world.
“I’m one of those people that feels at home wherever I am,” he said. “I put on a backpack. I get into a truck or whatever and I fly over to another place.”
The post Sex, drugs and Torah scrolls: At the Psychedelicatessen, visitors receive a powerful dose of art appeared first on The Forward.
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What sort of Yiddish do today’s Yiddishists speak?
פֿון לייזער בורקאָ
ווען מע וואָלט הײַנט געשטעלט די שאלה, „וואָס פֿאַר אַ ייִדיש רעדן די ייִדישיסטן?“ וואָלט אַ לץ מסתּמא געענטפֿערט: הײַנט רעדן זיי ענגליש. אָבער לאָמיר נישט מאַכן קיין חכמות און טראַכטן נאָר וועגן יענע ייִדישיסטן, וואָס רעדן ייִדיש טאַקע — אַזעלכע וואָס שרײַבן און לייענען אַרטיקלען אין „פֿאָרווערטס“, למשל. ווי אַזוי רעדן מיר?
די לינגוויסטקע עמאַ ברעסלאָו האָט לעצטנס פֿאַרטיידיקט איר דיסערטאַציע דווקא אויף דער טעמע. זי האָט אינטערוויויִרט דרײַסיק ייִדיש־רעדער, אַ טייל פֿון זיי — אויף דער ייִדיש־וואָך פֿון יוגנטרוף — ספּעציעל פֿון ניו־יאָרק, באָסטאָן און מאָנטרעאָל. דערבײַ האָט זי אַנטדעקט עטלעכע וויכטיקע און אינטערעסאַנטע פֿאַקטן.
איין פֿראַגע פֿון דער דיסערטאַציע איז, ווי אַזוי מע זאָל אונדז רופֿן. ווען ברעסלאָו האָט געפֿרעגט די מענטשן, אויב זיי רופֿן זיך „ייִדישיסטן“, האָבן מערסטע געזאָגט — ניין. דאָס איז אַליין אינטערעסאַנט, פֿאַר וואָס די ווערטער „ייִדישיזם“ און „ייִדישיסט“ קלינגען הײַנט עפּעס אַלטפֿרענקיש און מע וויל נישט הייסן אַזוי. ברעסלאָו האָט נישט געפֿונען קיין בעסערן נאָמען, רופֿט זי אונדז „די מיעוט־קאָנטעקסט־ייִדיש־קהילה“ (minority-context Yiddish community). אין דער דאָזיקער קאַטעגאָריע נעמט ברעסלאָו אויך אַרײַן געוועזענע חסידים, וואָס קומען אַ מאָל אויך אויף די ייִדישיסטישע אונטערנעמונגען.
איך אַליין פֿאַרשטיי נישט, פֿאַר וואָס מע שעמט זיך מיטן נאָמען „ייִדישיסט“. ערשטנס, וועלן די חסידים און פֿרומע ייִדן אונדז ווײַטער רופֿן „ייִדישיסטן“, ווי אַזוי מיר זאָלן זיך נישט רופֿן. אַזוי הייסן מיר אין זייער ייִדיש און אַזוי וועט עס בלײַבן. עס איז פֿאָרט בעסער ווי די אַלטערנאַטיווע נעמען (כּופֿר, אַפּיקורס אאַז״וו).
אַ צווייטער סורפּריז פֿון דער דיסערטאַציע איז די פֿאַרשידנקייט פֿון דעם ייִדיש, וואָס ייִדישיסטן רעדן. אַ דרויסנדיקער, אַ סטודענט, וואָלט אפֿשר געמיינט, אַז אַלע ייִדישיסטן רעדן דאָס זעלביקע כּלל־ייִדיש. דאָס איז אָבער אַ טעות: אַ סך ייִדישיסטן רעדן אויך פּויליש ייִדיש אָדער אוקראַיִניש ייִדיש אָדער געמישטע דיאַלעקטן. אַ סך ניצן אויך אַ מאָל פֿאַרשידענע וואָקאַלן אין די זעלביקע ווערטער; למשל, מע זאָגט אַ מאָל gut און אַ מאָל git, אָדער אַ מאָל zogn און אַ מאָל zugn.
ווען ברעסלאָו האָט געפֿרעגט מענטשן זייער מיינונג וועגן כּלל־ייִדיש, וואָס מע לערנט אין די קורסן, האָט זי באַקומען אַ סך נעגאַטיווע ענטפֿערס. באמת האָט קיינער נישט געענטפֿערט פּאָזיטיוו, כאָטש אַ טייל האָבן געזאָגט, אַז כּלל־ייִדיש קען זײַן ניצלעך בײַם אויסלערנען זיך די שפּראַך. אַ טייל אינטערוויויִרטע האָבן געזאָגט מאָדנע זאַכן וועגן כּלל־ייִדיש; למשל, אַז „קיינער רעדט דאָס נישט“ — כאָטש זיי האָבן דאָרט פֿאַרבראַכט מיט אַנדערע ייִדישיסטן, וואָס רעדן יאָ כּלל־ייִדיש, און מיט קינדער, וואָס רעדן עס ווי אַן אײַנגעבוירענע שפּראַך! בקיצור, עס איז פֿאַראַן עפּעס אַ געפֿיל, אַז כּלל־ייִדיש איז נישט „עכט“, ווײַל אַזוי ווייניק מענטשן רעדן עס פֿון דער היים.
די „מיעוט־קאָנטעקסט־ייִדיש־קהילה“ באַשטייט פֿון עטלעכע גרופּעס: מענטשן, וואָס רעדן גוט ייִדיש פֿון דער היים (native speakers); מענטשן, וואָס האָבן געהערט די שפּראַך קינדווײַז, אָבער רעדן נישט אַזוי גוט (heritage speakers); סטודענטן און אַזעלכע וואָס האָבן זיך אויסגעלערנט די שפּראַך; און אויך געוועזענע חסידים, וואָס לעבן הײַנט אין דער „פֿרײַער“ וועלט. יעדע גרופּע רעדט אַוודאי אַנדערש, אָבער צווישן זיי זענען פֿאַראַן אינטערעסאַנטע פּונקטן צו פֿאַרגלײַכן.
די געוועזענע חסידים רעדן חסידיש ייִדיש, וואָס די לינגוויסטן האָבן שוין גוט אויסגעפֿאָרשט. די סטודענטן רעדן געוויינטלעך אַ סאָרט כּלל־ייִדיש, וואָס זיי האָבן זיך אויסגעלערנט פֿון זייערע לערערס. אַ סך ייִדישיסטן רעדן מיט אַ געוויסער השפּעה פֿון ענגליש — וואָס איז נישט קיין חידוש, אַזוי ווי די חסידים רעדן אויך אַזוי. מע זעט אין די טראַנסקריבירטע ציטאַטן אינטערעסאַנטע בײַשפּילן פֿון „בײַטן פֿון קאָד“ (code-switching) — ווען מע גייט אַריבער פֿון איין שפּראַך אויף אַ צווייטער, אַהין און צוריק, אין מיטן שמועס. אַ צאָל ייִנגערע ייִדישיסטן ניצן דאָס וואָרט like אין זייער ייִדיש, פּונקט ווי אויף ענגליש.
אַן אַנדער ענין, וואָס ברעסלאָו פֿאָרשט, איז די אויסשפּראַך פֿונעם קלאַנג ריש /r/. אין די אַלטע דיאַלעקטן זענען געווען צוויי הויפּט־סאָרטן ריש: דער גאָרגלדיקער אָדער אוּוווּלאַרער ריש (uvular R), ווי אויף פֿראַנצויזיש אָדער עבֿרית; און דער צינגלדיקער אָדער אַפּיקאַלער ריש (apical R), ווי אויף רוסיש אָדער שפּאַניש. ייִדישיסטן ניצן ווײַטער די צוויי סאָרטן ריש, ווי אויך דעם ענגלישן סאָרט ריש (retroflex R) — נישט געקוקט אויפֿן שווערן חרם, וואָס אוריאל ווײַנרײַך האָט אַרויפֿגעלייגט אויפֿן ענגליש ריש אין זײַן לערנבוך, „קאַלעדזש־ייִדיש“.
די גראַמאַטיק בײַ ייִדישיסטן איז אויך כּדאַי צו פֿאָרשן, ווי מע זעט אין די ציטאַטן. כאָטש אַ סך ייִדישיסטן האָבן אין די קורסן זיך מערסטנס געלערנט די כּלל־ייִדישע גראַמאַטיק, זעט מען אָפֿט, אַז מע רעדט נישט אַזוי. דאָס דאַרף אפֿשר נישט זײַן קיין חידוש, ווײַל אין די אַלטע דיאַלעקטן האָט מען אויך אָפֿט גערעדט אַנדערש ווי אין די ביכער. דערפֿאַר דאַרף מען נישט קומען מיט טענות צו די חסידים, וואָס זיי האָבן „קאַליע געמאַכט“ די גראַמאַטיק — ווײַל די גראַמאַטיק איז שוין געווען „קאַליע“ פֿון פֿריִער, און בײַ די ייִדישיסטן איז זי אויך גענוג „קאַליע“, אַחוץ געציילטע מומחים.
ברעסלאָו האָט אַנטדעקט וויכטיקע זאַכן, וואָס יעדע איז ווערט, מע זאָל זי ווײַטער אויספֿאָרשן: די אידענטיטעט פֿון די ייִדישיסטן, וואָס ווילן אַזוי נישט הייסן; די פֿאַרשידנקייט פֿונעם ייִדישיסטישן ייִדיש, וואָס איז לאַוו־דווקא כּלל־ייִדיש; זייער אויסשפּראַך און גראַמאַטיק, וואָס זענען נישט אַזוי ווי מע וואָלט זיך געריכט. די קליינע וועלט פֿון ייִדישיסטן באַשטייט באמת פֿון פֿאַרשידענע גרופּעס, וואָס יעדע האָט אַ ביסל אַן אַנדער כאַראַקטער און יעדע רעדט אַנדערש. ווי גייט דאָס ווערטל: צוויי ייִדן — דרײַ מיינונגען.
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Being a soccer superstar couldn’t save him from the Nazis
For the past 20 years, the German Soccer Federation has awarded the Julius Hirsch Prize for organizations combating racism. This year, the recipients included an 11th-grade class that created an educational tool for anti-discrimination events, a children’s soccer league based in a disadvantaged area and a club originally founded in a refugee center.
Now, graphic novelist Julian Voloj has decided that it’s time for people to learn Hirsch’s story.
In 1911, Hirsch became the first Jewish player to serve on the German national team. He was the first player to score four goals in a single game, and he played for several soccer clubs that won the German football championship. Hirsch also was a decorated war veteran in WWI. Nevertheless, Hirsch was not spared from being a victim of the Holocaust.
“He was first seen as a hero and then seen as evil that needed to be destroyed,” Voloj said.
Voloj’s previous graphic novels have included an anthology of diverse Jewish voices and a story about the first Jewish congregation in America. He learned about Hirsch when he was working with Bayern Munich on a novel, completed in 2020, that explored the life of Oskar Rohr, another Jewish soccer player, who helped lead Bayern Munich to a 1932 championship.
With the help of a grant from the German soccer federation, Voloj is planning to complete Hirsch’s novel, “Juller,” in three years. He is working with an Israeli artist, Avi Blyer, to illustrate his work.
Voloj told me that, prior to the second World War, Hirsch was one of many Jewish German soccer players. “Soccer was an academic sport,” he said. Popular within universities, soccer emphasized values like teamwork and brotherhood, which stood in stark contrast to “the Nazi ideal” of manliness, which praised individual displays of strength and talent. In Austria-Hungary, many Jews became pioneers of the sport, including Hirsch’s teammate Gottfried Fuchs, who set a world record of 10 goals in a single soccer match. Unlike Hirsch, Fuchs survived the Holocaust by immigrating to Canada; he never returned to Germany.
For Voloj, the biggest struggle in writing about Hirsch comes with illuminating his personal life, rather than solely celebrating his accomplishments. “I know a lot about the statistics, but I don’t know so much about Julius Hirsch, the human being,” he told me.
He plans to start by depicting the religion and culture Hirsch was a part of — which he says might be the first time for non-Jewish readers to learn about these traditions. Voloj told me how he plans to recreate Hirsch’s Jewish wedding: showcasing the Chuppah and the smashing of the glass. In the scene, a rabbi will discuss its symbolism — a reminder of the fragility of life and the destruction of the Temple.
Tragically, though, this moment will be followed by one later in life, in which Hirsch divorced his non-Jewish wife as the German climate became increasingly dangerous for Jews. Hirsch hoped this would spare his children from persecution, but it was no use: Both of Hirsch’s children were sent to concentration camps. They ultimately survived, though, and Hirsch’s son later worked with a historian, Werner Skretny, to publish a biography of Hirsch.
A grandchild of Holocaust survivors, Voloj says he doesn’t want to focus overwhelmingly on Hirsch’s death, but instead to honor the life he led. However, it was still important for him to represent the antisemitic reality that Hirsch lived in; in the last part of the book, Voloj said, he will discuss how “the people who celebrated him basically abandoned him.”
Voloj says he believes that exploring Hirsch’s story is especially important today, when soccer is more diverse than ever and the German soccer team has become inclusive of many ethnic minorities. However, prejudice has also increased in many ways.
Voloj told me he sees “a lot of parallels in the experience” between the hatred that Jewish players faced under Nazi rule and what many Muslim players are experiencing today. However, he also said that many lessons could be taken from Hirsch’s early experiences when few fans cared that he was Jewish.
“There is something we can learn about the acceptance of the German Jewish players back then on the national team,” Voloj said. From his work, he hopes that readers can learn both from Germany’s dark past and also “overcome misconceptions about Jewish identity.”
The post Being a soccer superstar couldn’t save him from the Nazis appeared first on The Forward.
