Confronting Representations of Black Women and Men in Yiddish Culture

How did Yiddish culture – the press, theater, and literature, both in Eastern Europe and later in the United States through the 1930s – portray Black Africans and African Americans and what can we learn from it? 

Covering also residential patterns and socioeconomic relations between African Americans and Jewish immigrants, the conclusions of Gil Ribak’s new book, Crude Creatures, point to the intricate ways in which immigrant groups integrated their own cultures into American racial hierarchy and vocabulary. Drawing on a mixture of previously unexplored Yiddish sources from Eastern Europe and the United States, the book shows that while most East European Jews would not have seen a Black person before their arrival in America, they had already acquired preconceived imagery of Black people: various sources such as rabbinic exegesis, pious advice, travel narratives (either original or adapted from other languages), folklore, scientific explorations, pulp literature, press reports, political rhetoric, and educational materials conveyed such imagery. To Yiddish speakers, Black people came across as a mixture of exotic people and a reincarnation of East European Slavic peasantry, with many of its accompanying traits in Yiddish folklore: volatility, looming violence, coarseness, sexual promiscuity, and drunkenness, together with directness and simplicity.

Register HERE.

MARCH 16, 2026. 

5 - 6:30 p.m.
370 Dwinelle Hall, UC Berkeley campus