Whitechapel noise : Jewish immigrant life in Yiddish song and verse, London 1884-1914 /
Vivi Lachs.
- xvii, 331 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 287-308) and index.
Immigrant labor, political activism, and socialist poetry -- London Yiddish musical-hall culture -- The transnational scope -- Debates and ballads -- Making socialist activists -- Transforming courtship -- Marriage, lodgers, and transgressive sex -- Religion as a socialist tool -- Religion updated and improved.
"Archive material from the London Yiddish press, songbooks, and satirical writing offers a window into an untold cultural life of the Yiddish East End. Whitechapel Noise: Jewish Immigrant Life in Yiddish Song and Verse, London 1884-1914 by Vivi Lachs positions London's Yiddish popular culture in historical perspective within Anglo-Jewish history, English socialist aesthetics, and music-hall culture, and shows its relationship to the transnational Yiddish-speaking world. Layers of cultural references in the Yiddish texts are closely analyzed and quoted to draw out the complex yet intimate histories they contain, offering new perspectives on Anglo-Jewish historiography in three main areas: politics, sex, and religion"--