Funny, Strange, and Serious Stories of Yiddishland's Jews

Cornell Professor of Modern Jewish Studies Jonathan Boyarin will discuss his 2025 translation of Mordkehai Lipson's Yiddish anecdotes. About the Event On Monday, October 12, Cornell University's Mann Professor of Modern Jewish Studies Jonathan Boyarin will discuss his 2025 translation of Mordkehai Lipson's collected anecdotes As the Story Goes: Funny, Strange, and Serious Stories of Yiddishland's Jews. The presentation will begin at 5:30 PM in the UVA Bookstore, with a Q&A, book sale and signing, and reception to follow. This event is open to the public, but registration is required for in-person attendance. The event will also be streamed live on our YouTube channel. About the Book In the 1920s Yiddish journalist Mordekhai Lipson collected and published some 1,000 rich anecdotes, all related in the name of prominent male figures of modern East European Jewry. Most but not all are rabbis, most but not all observant Jews. They reveal both the imperfect humanity and the ready, resourceful wit these people deployed as they dealt with their colleagues, community members, imperial authorities and the pressures of rapid change. Now Jonathan Boyarin and Jonah Sampson Boyarin have presented a selection of these anecdotes in an English-language version that provides readers and listeners with one more bridge to a world once thought irretrievably lost.