Jewish Literary Review

Posted on April 27, 2008 by Steve Pollak

Yiddish literary journal set to close

The Forward published a story last week about Heshbon, an esteemed Yiddish literary journal based in Los Angeles, which will most likely fold after celebrating its 150th issue last October.

The 87-year-old editor, Moshe Shklar, told the Forward that health problems have begun to take their toll on his ability to produce the semiannual journal. In addition, there are financial considerations. It costs about $5,000 to publish each issue. Some revenue comes from the 100 or so subscribers but the journal has had to rely more and more on private donations in recent years. According to the Forward, the majority of those funds “dried up” after the death of Heshbon's major backer, Simcha Lainer.

Here's more from the Forward article:

The demise of Heshbon would deal a serious blow to the Yiddish literary landscape of L.A. and beyond. Of the more than dozen Yiddish journals once published in America, only a handful remain. Heshbon, founded in 1946 by the writers who made up the ranks of the L.A. Yiddish Culture Club, is one of the last surviving outlets for contemporary Yiddish poetry, fiction and literary criticism.

“This is like losing The Paris Review of Yiddish,” said Miriam Koral, founder and director of the California Institute for Yiddish Culture and Language and a lecturer in Yiddish at University of California, Los Angeles. “It symbolizes the lack of continuity of a certain high form of Yiddish literacy.”

I hope the journal lives on in some form. There's certainly an opportunity to create a Web site for Heshbon (I didn't find one when I searched Google.) In fact, for the cost of producing just one of those print editions, Heshbon could have an excellent site. And, you've got to believe that there would be a lot of value in putting an archive spanning 150 issues of an esteemed Yiddish literary journal on the Web — with the English translations, of course.

It's something for the L.A. Yiddish Culture Club to think about.

For more news about Jewish books, sign up for Jewish Literary Review's email alerts (via Feedburner).

Related Posts

1. A Yiddish Lullaby
2. Yiddish writer left ‘Inheritance’ for us
3. 'It's never to late to learn Yiddish!'
4. Two (somewhat) literary takes on Annapolis
5. Holocaust book wins French literary prize