Scott Davis

Today, August 30, 2022 (Elul 3, 5782 on the Hebrew calendar), marks the 103rd anniversary of the Yiddish author Jacob Dinezon’s death. In a year when war raged once again in eastern Europe, this time with an invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s Russian army, and as the Covid pandemic and political turmoil plagued America, we resolved to continue our work in attempting to restore Jacob Dinezon’s literary legacy. Much of the effort was accomplished by two wonderful Yiddish translators, Mindy Liberman and Janie Respitz, who translated several Dinezon-related letters, articles, essays, and newspaper obituaries. All of their work had now . . . (Read More)

I recently received a copy of Moshkeleh the Thief, a beautifully designed little book of “a rediscovered novel” by the Yiddish author Sholom Aleichem, translated into English by Curt Leviant. For Jewish readers with an interest in Yiddish literature, having Sholom Aleichem’s name associated with a new story is like uncovering a painting with Rembrandt’s signature on it. In fact, in this day and age, if a new translation from the Yiddish doesn’t have Sholom Aleichem’s name attached to it, it probably wasn’t distributed by a major publisher. And this little book has two major publishers behind it, the esteemed . . . (Read More)

Today, August 29, 2021, marks the 102nd anniversary of the death of the Jewish author Jacob Dinezon. We commemorate this day with the following quotations gleaned from newspaper obituaries and tributes published in Warsaw and Bialystok and across the ocean in New York City in the days immediately following Dinezon’s death in 1919. These first-time English translations by Mindy Liberman, translator of Dinezon’s novel Falik and His House, offer a poignant and powerful reminder of Jacob Dinezon’s role in the development of modern Yiddish literature and his love, commitment, and devotion to the care and education of Jewish children. Der . . . (Read More)

In December 2019, following a talk at an event sponsored by the California Institute for Yiddish Culture and Language, I met a young woman, Anna Bonazzi. A Ph.D. student at UCLA with an interest in languages, Anna mentioned that she had gone online to find out more about the Yiddish author Jacob Dinezon and discovered that unlike Sholem Aleichem, I. L. Peretz, and Sholem Abramovitsh, Wikipedia did not have a page devoted to this significant Jewish writer. Then Anna Bonazzi did something extraordinary: she offered to create the Jacob Dinezon Wikipedia page. The page is now complete and online—a dream . . . (Read More)

I can’t remember the exact moment when I began connecting the dots that led me to the realization that the name Dineson, Dinesohn, Dienesohn, Dyneson, and Dinezon all belonged to the same person. (Later I would learn from Adam Teitelbaum that the spelling of this same name in Yiddish, the language in which he wrote, also appeared in multiple ways. Even his handwritten signature, which includes an “h” (ה/hey) before the final “n” (ן/langer nun), conflicts with the spelling of his name in many Yiddish publications.) So imagine my surprise when all the spellings suddenly coalesced into a single person—a . . . (Read More)

There is something exhilarating about making a research find—especially when the discovery adds real historical or literary value. That’s what happened recently when a lost piece of Jacob Dinezon’s writing was located in an old Yiddish newspaper on the Historical Jewish Press website, made possible by Tel Aviv University and the National Library of Israel. My first encounter with this extraordinary resource was in obtaining information about Dinezon’s death and funeral in the Warsaw Yiddish newspaper, Haynt (Today). Most of these reports, which were translated into English by Tina Lunson and are now online, were published in late August and . . . (Read More)

Exactly one year ago today, on September 3rd, 2019, my family and I celebrated the Yiddish writer Jacob Dinezon’s 100th yortsayt for a second time in New York City. Three days earlier, we returned from Poland, where we commemorated Dinezon’s memorial on August 29th, the anniversary of his death on the secular calendar. September 3rd marked the date on the Hebrew calendar. On Sunday afternoon, September 1st, we had the opportunity to attend one of the final performances of A Fidler Afn Dakh, a Yiddish version of Fiddler on the Roof. In the early 1960s, the Israeli actor and director, . . . (Read More)

With all that’s been going on in 2020, it’s hard to believe that exactly one year ago, my sweet companion Carolyn Toben and I arrived at the Warsaw Chopin Airport. We had come to Poland to help commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of an important Jewish writer named Jacob Dinezon. The decision to visit Warsaw was not an easy one. Almost everything there when Dinezon was alive was destroyed by the Nazis during the Holocaust: the streets he walked, the apartment he lived in, the synagogue where he prayed. And, of course, the devastation of the Jewish population. . . . (Read More)

As the year 2019 comes to a close, I wish to express my deepest thanks to all who have helped us celebrate the life and literary career of the remarkable Yiddish author Jacob Dinezon on the occasion of his 100th yortsayt—the 100th anniversary of his death. In the beginning, my plan was to simply commemorate this event with the February publication of the first English translation of Jacob Dinezon’s 19th-century bestselling Yiddish novel, The Dark Young Man by Tina Lunson. But the creative insights and skills of our publicist, the author, poet, and blogger, Erika Dreifus, expanded the vision into . . . (Read More)

February 12, 2019/7 Adar I, 5779 is an auspicious day for us. Today Jewish Storyteller Press published the first English translation of Jacob Dinezon’s 1877 Yiddish novel, The Dark Young Man. Translated by Tina Lunson, and adapted and edited by Scott Hilton Davis, Dinezon’s renowned nineteenth-century Jewish romance is now available to twenty-first-century readers. For me personally, this is the culmination of a sixteen-year effort to revive and rescue Jacob Dinezon’s literary legacy. A highly respected and beloved folk writer during his lifetime, Dinezon’s significant contributions to Jewish literature were obscured by the demise of secular Yiddish following the Holocaust. . . . (Read More)

Over the past fifteen years, as I’ve spent time researching the life and career of the Yiddish author Jacob Dinezon, one piece of information has eluded me: the name of Dinezon’s older sister with whom he lived in Warsaw from the mid-1880s until his death in 1919. Many biographers and memoirists speak of Dinezon’s small apartment in the home of his sister and her family, and an announcement in Warsaw’s Yiddish newspaper, Haynt, reveals the location of Dinezon’s passing: “With deepest sorrow we announce to all family members and friends that Friday the 29th of August, 3 Elul, at 5:20 . . . (Read More)