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Prof. Dov Ber Kotlerman

Telephone
03-5318630
Fax
03-7384170
Email
ber.kotlerman@biu.ac.il
Office
building 410, floor 3, room 304
Reception Hours
by appointment
Research

Old and Modern Yiddish Literature, S.Y.Agnon, Jewish Culture in the Soviet Union, The Birobidzhan Experiment, Jewish Names, Yiddish Journalism, Jewish Theater and Cinema, Multilingual Jewish Literature, Jews in the Far East

Publications
Peer-Reviewed Journals
  • “'Going through the Seven Circles of Hell – Joyfully, a la Motl': Sholem Aleichem’s Missing Film Script about Motl the Cantor’s Son,” Jewish Quarterly Review (University of Pennsylvania, forthcoming)
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  • "South African Writings of Morris Hoffman: Between Yiddish and Hebrew," Journal for Semitics / Tydskrif vir Semitistiek 23/2 (2014), pp. 569-582 (The Southern Africa Society for Near Eastern Studies)  
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  • "Between Loyalty to the Empire and National Self-Consciousness: Joseph Trumpeldor among Jewish Russian POWs in Japan (1905)," Asia Japan Journal 9 (2014), pp. 39-49 (Kokushikan University in Tokyo)                                
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  • “The ‘Evil Spirit’ outside the Lurianic Context: An Examination of the 1602 Yiddish ‘Tale about a Youth Possessed by an Evil Spirit’,” Journal of Jewish Studies LXIV  no. 2 (Autumn 2013), pp. 347-364 (Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies)
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  • “Positivist Romanticism on the Soviet Jewish Stage: Moyshe Goldblat’s New Yiddish Theater, 1937-38,” Aschkenas: Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der Juden (2014, forthcoming) 
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  • “Des Juifs de Provence au XIIIe siècle aux Juifs d’Union soviétique: Le roman en yiddish Galgal hakhoyzer (la Roue tourne) de Natan Zabare”, Revue des Études Juives 173 (1-2) (2014), pp. 181-189, (in French) 
     
  • “Romanticization and Criticism in Agnon’s Poland Stories: Polish Jewry as an Archetype of a Jewish Community in the Exile”, Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry 28 (2014) (forthcoming)
     
  • "'And His Heart, a Precious Violin': The Musical Layering of S.Y. Agnon's Yiddish Story 'Toytntants'", Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, Society 18.1 (2011), pp. 127-144 (Stanford University) 
     
  • "Since I Have Learned of These Evil Tidings, I Have Been Heartsick and I Am Unable to Sleep": The Old Yiddish and Hebrew Letters from 1476 in the Shadow of Blood Libels in Northern Italy and Germany", Jewish Quarterly Review 101.2 (2012), pp. 1-17 (University of Pennsylvania) 
     
  • "If There Had Been No Synagogue There, They Would Have Had to Invent It: The Case of the Birobidzhan 'Religious Community of the Judaic creed' on the Threshold of Perestroika", East European Jewish Affairs 42.2 (2012), pp. 87-97 
     
  • "Tsena u-rena by Rabbi Yaakov ben Yitzhak Ashkenazi from Yanov: Composition, Sources, and Revision of the Original Text", Vestnik: International Journal for Jewish Studies 14 (2011), pp. 26-49 (The Hebrew University in Jerusalem - The Jewish University in Moscow, in Russian) 
     
  • "The Old Birobidzhan Synagogue and City Planning in the Mid-1980s: The Last Confrontation", in: Ber Boris Kotlerman (ed.), Mizrekh: Jewish Studies in the Far East. Vol. II. Religion, Philosophy, Identity (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2011), pp. 109-134 
     
  • "The Evil Spirit as a Way of Cultural Expression of Social Problems", Vestnik: International Journal for Jewish Studies 13 (2009), pp. 49-66 (The Hebrew University in Jerusalem - The Jewish University in Moscow, in Russian) 
     
  • "The Dybbuk Phenomenon Representation in Yiddish vs. Hebrew", Hulyot (Ringen): Journal for Yiddish Literature and Culture 11 (2008), pp. 237-250 (Haifa University - Tel Aviv University - Bar-Ilan University, in Hebrew) 
     
  • "Trading Places: Buzi Miller and Internationalization of Jewish 'Bourgeois Nationalism'", Mizrekh: Jewish Studies in the Far East [I] (Frankfurt-am-Main: Peter Lang, 2009), pp. 246-258 (in Yiddish) 
     
  • "Yosef Trumpeldor in Japanese Captivity (1905): An Appeal to the Russian Emperor Nicolas II", Mizrekh: Jewish Studies in the Far East [I] (Frankfurt-am-Main: Peter Lang, 2009), pp. 171-188 (in Russian) 
     
  • "The Plays of Perets Markish: Balancing between 'Jewish' and 'Soviet'", Yiddish Theater: Literature, Culture and Nationalism - Bikoret ve-parshanut 41 (2008), pp. 111-129 (Bar-Ilan University, in Hebrew) 
     
  • "'Yiddishization' of the territory: Immigrant settlements and collective farms on the map of the Jewish Autonomous Region," Vestnik Dal'nevostochnoi gosudarstven-noi sotsial'no-gumanitarnoi akademii 1 (2008), pp. 65-70 (Sholem Aleichem State University, in Russian) 
     
  • "The Miracles of the Sexton of the Old Bet Midrash" by S. Y. Agnon (Tables of Comparison)", Yeda Am: Journal of the Israel Folklore Society 67-68 (2007), pp. 97-129 (in Hebrew) 
     
  • "The Soviet Bar-Kokhva in Israeli Garb: Yaakov Orland's Hebrew Translation of Shmuel Halkin's Yiddish Drama 'Bar-Kokhva'", Hulyot (Ringen): Journal for Yiddish Literature and Culture 10 (fall 2006), pp. 447-459 (Haifa University - Tel Aviv University - Bar-Ilan University, in Hebrew) 
     
  • "Complete Index of Stories in the 'Mayse-bukh'", Hulyot (Ringen): Journal for Yiddish Literature and Culture 10 (Fall 2006), pp. 291-328 (Haifa University - Tel Aviv University - Bar-Ilan University, in Hebrew) 
     
  • "The Yiddish Orthography in the Late Soviet Period: the Case of Nathan Zabare's 'Galgal haHoyzer'", IGK Paris 2005 Kongressakten des "Jahrbuchs fur Internationale Germanistik", Band 2 (78) (2007), pp. 69-71 (Peter Lang, in German) 
     
  • "The Closure of the Yiddish Theaters in the USSR", Vestnik: International Journal for Jewish Studies 11 (2006), pp. 145-160 (The Hebrew University in Jerusalem - The Jewish University in Moscow, in Russian) 
     
  • "Ukrainian Performances of Birobidzhan GOSET (1940) in the Light of Western Territories Annexation", Jewish Ethnic Studies and Collections (Kiev, 2005), pp. 343-349 (Institute for Jewish Studies and National Library of Ukraine, in Russian) 
     
  • "David Bergelson around the Jewish Autonomous Region in the USSR", Hulyot (Ringen): Journal for Yiddish Literature and Culture, 9 (Summer 2005), pp. 239-254 (Haifa University - Tel Aviv University - Bar-Ilan University, in Hebrew) 
     
  • "The Jewish Folklore Archive in Tartu, Estonia", with Avidov Lipsker, Hulyot (Ringen): Journal for Yiddish Literature and Culture 8 (Winter 2004), pp. 299-314 (Haifa University - Tel Aviv University - Bar-Ilan University, in Hebrew) 
     
  • "Jewish Names on the Birobidzhan Map", These Are the Names 4 (2003), pp. 209-226 (Bar-Ilan University) 
     
  • "The Image of Birobidzhan in Yiddish Belle Lettres", Jews in Eastern Europe 3(49) (Winter 2002), pp. 47-78 (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) 
     
  • "Yiddish Schools in Birobidzhan, 1939-1941", Jews in Eastern Europe 3(49)(Winter 2002), pp. 109-120 (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) 
     
  • "The Prewar Period of the Birobidzhan State Jewish Theater, 1934-1941", Jews in Eastern Europe 1(44) (Spring 2001), pp. 29-59 (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) 

    ENTRIES 

    in: Encyclopedia of East European Jewry (New-York: YIVO, 2008): 
     
  • 1. Folks-shtime (newspaper, Lodz-Warsaw) 
    2. Folkstsaytung (newspaper, Warsaw) 
    3. Hayoets (newspaper, Bucharest) 
    4. Birobidzhaner shtern (newspaper, Birobidzhan) 
    5. Der emes (newspaper, Moscow) 
    6. Kol mevaser (newspaper, Odessa) 
    7. Rubinshtein, Reuven (biography) 
    8. Yatskan, Shmuel-Yakov (biography) 
    9. Garfunkel, Leib (biography) 
    10.Frimorgn (newspaper, Riga) 
    11.Idishe shtime (newspaper, Kovno)

 

  • CHAPTERS IN BOOKS 
     
  • “‘We Are Lacking ‘A Man Dieth in a Tent’: Der Nister’s Search for Redemption in the Summer of 1947,” in: Gennady Estraikh, Michael Krutikov, Kerstin Hoge (eds.), Uncovering the Hidden: The Works and Life of  Der Nister (Oxford: Legenda, 2014), pp. 174-184
  • “‘For the Pleasure of Life in Switzerland, I Had to Start Spitting Blood’: Sholem Aleichem’s Scriptwriting Debut against the Background of the Beilis Case,” in: Tamar Lewinsky and Sandrine Mayoraz (eds.), East European Jews in Switzerland (=New Perspectives on Modern Jewish History, vol. 5) (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2013), pp. 210-224
  • "Markish's Play The Ovadis Family and Soviet Jewish Policies, 1936-1941", in: Joseph Sherman, Gennady Estraikh, Jordan Finkin, David Shneer (eds.), A Captive of the Dawn: The Life and Work of Perets Markish (Oxford: Legenda, 2010), pp. 124-135 
     
  • "Historical Time and Space in Agnon's Poland Stories", in: H-J. Becker and Hillel Weiss (eds.), Agnon and Germany (Ramat Gan: BIU Press, 2010), pp. 361-374 
     
  • "Tables of Comparison: Or Tora, The Miracles of the Sexton of the Old Bet Midrash, Bimtsulot", in: H-J. Becker and Hillel Weiss (eds.), Agnon and Germany (Ramat Gan: BIU Press, 2010, in Hebrew), passim 
     
  • "Proletarian Songs With Hasidic Melodies: On the Method of Socialist Realism in Soviet Yiddish Drama", in: L. Katsis, M. Kaspina, D. Fishman (eds.), Yiddish: Language and Culture in USSR (Moscow: Judaica Rossica & Russian State University for Humanities, 2009, in Yiddish), pp. 55-63 
     
  • "'Why I am in Favour of Birobidzhan': Bergelson's Fateful Decision", in: Joseph Sherman and Gennady Estraikh (eds.), David Bergelson: From Modernism to Socialist Realism (Oxford: Legenda, 2007), pp. 222-235 
     
  • "On the Proposed Establishment of a State Vocal Ensemble and National Opera in Yiddish in Birobidzhan: Milner, Sheinin, Faintukh", in: Alexander Frenkel and Galina Kopytova (eds.), On the History of Jewish Music in Russia, Vol. 2 (St. Petersburg: Russian Institute for the History of the Arts, 2006), pp. 83-98 (in Russian) 
     
  • "Simkhes Toyre lid fun Rivke Tiktiner", in: Aliza Lavie (comp.), Jewish Women's Prayers Throughout the Ages (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronoth Books and Chemed Books, 2005), pp. 234-237 (in Hebrew)

 

  • BOOK REVIEWS 
  • Dreams of Nationhood, by Henry Felix Srebrnik, Slavic Review (University of Illinois) 70.4 (winter 2011), pp. 933-934 
     
  • Discovering the Magic of Yidishkayt: Futur Anterieur: Avant-garde and the Yiddish Book (1914-1939), by Paris Museum of Art and History of Judaism, Ars Judaica 7 (2011), pp. 137-141 (Bar Ilan University) 
     
  • NUMEROUS REVIEWS IN THE NEWSPAPERS Makor Rishon and Haaretz (in Hebrew and English)
 
CONFERENCES

  • "Jews vs. Non-Jews in South Africa in Morris Hoffman's Hebrew and Yiddish Writings", International Conference "New Research in Hebrew Language and Culture", University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa, January 27-29, 2014 

  • "A 'Jewish Son of the Regiment': A War-Time Essay of Der Nister", International Workshop "Soviet Partisans and the Holocaust – New Research and New Approaches", The International Institute for Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem, January 13-14, 2014

  • "Tseena u-Reena and the Principles of the Bible Translation into Old Yiddish", 2013 NAPH International Conference on Hebrew Language, Literature and Culture, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York, June 24-26, 2013
  • "The Influence of Early French Cinema on Sholem Aleichem's Motl the Cantor's Son", Around the Point: The Languages, Literatures and Cultures of Jews, Bar Ilan University, December 17-19, 2012 
     
  • "The Land of Birobidzhan in Soviet Yiddish Literature", International Conference "The Image of Russian Far East", Sholem Aleichem State University, Birobidzhan, RF, November 16, 2012 
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  • “Der Nister’s 1947 ‘Going to Exile’,” St. Hilda’s College of Oxford University, Der Nister Conference, Oxford, England, August 7-9, 2012
     
  • “The Hebrew Literature in the USSR and Its Historiography: New Approaches”, 2012 NAPH International Conference on Hebrew Language, Literature and Culture, University of California in Los Angeles, USA, June 25-27, 2012 
     
  • "Des Juifs de Provence au XIIIe siècle aux Juifs d’Union soviétique: le roman en yiddish 'Galgal hakhoyzer' (la Roue tourne) de Natan Zabare", International Conference "Jews in Provence", University of Aix-en-Provence, France, February 13-15, 2012 
     
  • “The Attitude to Assimilation: From ‘Tevye the Dairyman’ to ‘Fiddler on the Roof’”, International Conference “Israel and the Nations – Vision and Reality”, Yeshiva University, Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, New York, July 5-7, 2011 
     
  • “Yaacov Orland as Hebrew Interpreter of Soviet Yiddish Drama”, 2011 NAPH Conference on Hebrew Language, Literature and Culture, University of Maryland, USA, June 28-30, 2011 
     
  • "Shalom-Aleichem and the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-05", International Conference "Jews and the Far East", McGilvary College of Divinity, Payap University, Chiang Mai, Thailand, January 27-31, 2011 
     
  • "Agnon in Yiddish: Words and Music" 2010 NAPH Conference on Hebrew Language, Literature and Culture, Stern College, New York, July 18-20, 2010 
     
  • "Private Letters in the 'Language of Ashkenaz' on the Background of the Trento Libel, 1475", International Conference "The Heritage of Italian Jewry", Sicily-South Italy-Rome, February 7-14, 2010 
     
  • "Toytntants by Sh.-Y. Agnon: Between Yiddish and Hebrew", The 15th World Congress of Jewish Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, August 2-6, 2009 
     
  • "'Prince Reuveni' by David Bergelson in the Context of Soviet Jewry during WW2," International Conference "The Heritage of Spanish Jewry", Madrid-Morocco, July 5-15, 2009 
     
  • "East European Jews in the Far East in the 20th Century: The Case of Yosef Trumpeldor", Bar-Ilan University Conference "Jews and China - past and present", Beijing-Harbin-Shanghai, China, September 9-14, 2008 
     
  • "Conflict of Chronotopes: Jewish Literature in Birobidzhan between Yiddish and Russian in the Late 1950s," International Conference on Jewish Studies "The Birobidzhan Project: Politics, History and Culture," Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Birobidzhan, Russia, August 21, 2007 
     
  • "The Epistolary Style of the Oldest Yiddish Letters from the 15th Century," 2007 NAPH Conference on Hebrew Language, Literature and Culture, University of Sydney, Australia, July 1-6, 2007 
     
  • "Shalom-Aleichem the Screenwriter", IX Symposium fur Jiddische Studien in Deutschland, Heinrich-Heine-University, Duesseldorf, Germany, October 9-11, 2006 
     
  • "Proletarishe lider mit khsidishe nigunim: on the method of the Socialist Realism in Soviet Yiddish Drama", Yiddish: Language and Culture in USSR, Russian State University for Humanities & Russian-American Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies, Moscow, Russia, July 27-29, 2006 
     
  • "The Yiddish Orthography in the Late Soviet Period: The Case of Nathan Zabare", XI Internationaler Germanistenkongress "Germanistik im Konflikt der Kulturen", Sorbonne, Paris, France, August 26 - September 3, 2005 
     
  • "Historical Time and Space in S.-Y. Agnon's "Poland Stories", The 14th World Congress for Jewish Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, July 31- August 4, 2005 
     
  • "Elia Bokher's "Bovo-bukh": Variety of Editions and Intercultural Contacts", The 24th Conference "Language and Folklore", Bar-Ilan University, Israel, March 2, 2005 
     
  • "Academic Yiddish Studies in the State of Israel", International Conference of Yiddish Lecturers, University of Potsdam, Germany, November 9-12, 2004 
     
  • "Long Way of Sholem-Aleichem's Tevye the Dairyman in Theater and Cinema", VII Symposium fur Jiddische Studien in Deutschland, Heinrich-Heine-University, Duesseldorf, Germany, October 3-5, 2004 
     
  • "Yiddish Theater of Birobidzhan on the Tour in Ukraine, 1940", Internationl Scientific Conference "Jewish History and Culture in Countries of Central and Eastern Europe", Institute of Jewish Studies, Kiev, Ukraine, August 23-25, 2004 
     
  • "Poland Stories" of S.-Y. Agnon: Comparative Analysis", 2004 NAPH International Conference on Hebrew Language and Literature, University of Texas, Austin, USA, June 6-8, 2004 
     
  • "The Soviet Yiddish Theater in the 30-s: Between the "National Form" and the "Socialist Content", VI Symposium fur Jiddische Studien in Deutschland, Trier University, Trier, Germany, September 23-25, 2003 
     
  • "The Processing of the Yiddish Version of "Bridal Canopy", Final Meeting of the Israely-German Research Group "German Period" and "German Presence" in the Work of S.-Y. Agnon", Bar-Ilan University, Israel, July 23-25, 2003 
     
  • "Place Names in the "Poland Stories" of S.Y. Agnon", VI International Conference on Jewish Names, Bar-Ilan University, Israel, June 11, 2003 
     
  • "The Jewish Toponymy in the USSR", V Symposium fur Jiddische Studien in Deutschland, Heinrich-Heine-University, Duesseldorf, Germany, September 23-25, 2002 
     
  • "To the Research of Germany-period of S.Y. Agnon", International Conference on Hebrew Language, Culture and Literature, NAPH, 2002, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, July 2-4, 2002 
     
  • "Birobidzhan in the Yiddish Literature", Yiddish Language and Culture in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA, October 28-30, 2001 
     
  • "The last page of Birobidzhan literature: between Yiddish and Russian", IV Symposium fur Jiddische Studien in Deutschland, Trier University, Germany, September 10-12, 2001 
     
  • "The Comparative Tables of Agnon's story "Orphan and Widow", Goettingen Theological Institut, Goettingen University, Germany, September 9-11, 2001 
     
  • "The Jews in Birobidzhan: Jewish Names on the Map", The 13th World Congress for Jewish Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, August 12-17, 2001 
     
  • "Mayse-bukh: a literary genre or a Yiddish epos?", III Symposium fur Jiddische Studien in Deutschland, Heinrich-Heine-University, Duesseldorf, Germany, August 28-30, 2000
Media

History of Yiddish Cinema (Interview, New York, 2010)

In Search of Milk and Honey (lecture in Yiddish, YIVO, New York, 2010)

Jewish Cultural Life in Birobidzhan (Audio lecture, The Medem Yiddish Center, Paris, 2012)

Sholem Aleichem vs. the Czar (Haaretz, October 5, 2012)

Last Updated Date : 08/09/2022