From the Pages of Yedies

by ROBERTA NEWMAN

Just about 36 years ago, students in YIVO’s Max Weinreich Center for Advanced Jewish Studies formed a discussion group that met in its members’ apartments.

Among the students were several academics who are now considerably further on in their careers. Steven Zipperstein is now the Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History at Stanford University. This spring he will serve as YIVO’s first Jacob Kronhill Visiting Scholar and will teach a special course on Jews and the Russian Revolution.

Jack Kugelmass is now the Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Among his many books on Jewish ethnography are two that have become classics, The Miracle of Intervale Avenue and From a Ruined Garden: Memorial Books of Polish Jewry (co-authored with Jonathan Boyarin and Zachary Baker.

Among the topics the group were planning to discuss was Hillel Halkin’s book, Letters to an American Jewish Friend: A Zionist’s Polemic. First published in 1977, the book has recently been reissued in a new edition by Geffen Books.