“Yiddish Paris: Staging Nation and Community in Interwar France”
a Mayrent Research Seminar with
Nicholas Underwood
College of Idaho
Thursday, December 4
4:00pm
4233 Humanities
To attend: Professor Underwood will pre-circulate a chapter from his recently published book Yiddish Paris: Staging Nation and Community in Interwar France (2022, Indiana University Press). If you are interested in joining the conversation, please RSVP to yudkoff@wisc.edu by Monday, December 1. This event will be limited to 18 participants. Faculty and students at all levels are warmly welcome.
About the topic: The year 1937 was important for Yiddish Paris. Immigrant Jews in France not only established the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion at the World’s Fair but also organized the First International Yiddish Culture Congress—the largest congress of its kind since the influential 1908 Czernowitz Conference. This chapter shows how after nearly twenty years of work, Yiddish-speaking immigrant Jews in Paris were finally able to establish themselves as a Jewish cultural bulwark against fascism. The internationalist opportunities provided by the 1937 World’s Fair, moreover, enabled an unprecedented level of global Yiddish cultural cooperation and awareness both within and beyond Jewish circles.
Nick Underwood is an assistant professor of history and the Berger/Neilsen Chair in Judaic Studies at The College of Idaho. His first book, Yiddish Paris: Staging Nation and Community in Interwar France was published in 2022 with Indiana University Press and was later a finalist for a National Jewish Book Award. His most recent publication is a volume, co-edited with Meredith Scott, titled Jewish Ideas of France: Migration, Diaspora, and Empire, which was published by Routledge in 2025. His work has also appeared in a number of Jewish and French history journals. He also serves as the managing editor for the Digital Yiddish Theatre Project.