New Yiddish Literature — Afn Shvel #358-359, special literary issue in book format. This volume is devoted entirely to new Yiddish literature. It features the poetry and prose of thirty Yiddish writers living on four continents and seven countries, most born after the Holocaust. The youngest are university students, the oldest are venerable, renowned writers in their nineties.

The works are wide-ranging in scope and of many genres. Poetry – from ballads to free verse, stories, plays and memoirs. Topics range from the constant themes of literature in general: love, death and inner struggle as well as those specific to Yiddish literature, including Jewish life before the Holocaust and picking up the pieces of a shattered life after the Holocaust. There are also a number of topics seldom encountered in Yiddish literature. Emil Kalin’s story “Five Minutes in Room 204” tells of a Jewish Communist in Rumania who has sold his soul and his Jewish name to climb up the party ladder. Sholem Berger’s “A Historical Tale” deals with the complicated moral entanglements wrought by science and technology. Daniel Galay’s play Questions-Answers deals with contemporary Israel and the conflicts between the ultra Orthodox and the secular with rare optimism.