Chava Rosenfarb: The Yiddish Woman Writer in the Post-Holocaust World

Chava Rosenfarb (1923-2011) was born in Lodz, Poland. After surviving the Holocaust, Rosenfarb emigrated to Montreal in 1950. The author, Rosenfarb's daughter, calls Rosenfarb "the last of the great Yiddish-language novelists" and discusses several of Rosenfarb’s works of fiction, including her 1972 Der Boym fun Lebn (The Tree of Life), her 1982 Bociany which was translated into English and published in two volumes in 2000 as Bociany and Of Lodz and Love, and her 1992 Briv tsu Abrashen (Letters to Abrasha). The author points out that because she wrote primarily in Yiddish, her name and work are hardly known to English-speaking readers, despite the fact that she lived in Canada for over fifty years. The author gives an overview of Rosenfarb’s life and career, suggesting that it was as a Yiddish writer rather than as a woman that Rosenfarb had felt most discriminated against.

Canadian Jewish Studies/Études juives canadiennes

Vol. 11

37-51

2003

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