(JEWISH GROUP) Yiddish culture shared mainstream racist stereotypes of the 1920s, new book shows

America held many surprises for Jewish immigrants arriving at its shores over 150 years ago but one of the most significant was meeting African Americans, something that was very unfamiliar, even alien to them.

Sholem Aleichem conveyed this feeling in his series of stories Motl, Pesye the Cantor’s Son. In one memorable episode, its protagonist Motl, aged about nine, gets on the New York subway for the first time and sees a Black couple on the train. Stunned, he describes them in terms that would shock today’s readers: “Crude creatures. Horribly thick lips. Large white teeth and white nails.”

Critics would naturally focus on the racist stereotypes in this passage. But who’s to blame here: the author or the character?

In his latest book, Gil Ribak (University of Arizona) tackles this very question, putting Motl’s words right in the title: “Crude Creatures: Confronting Representations of Black People in Yiddish Culture.” Hillel Halkin’s English translation of these Sholem Aleichem stories, Ribak notes, omits the phrase, in a sign of modern discomfort around racist language.

Ribak isn’t the first scholar to take on this complicated, sensitive topic. However, until recently, scholars tended to tread carefully around attitudes toward African Americans as reflected in Yiddish literature; positive stories were amplified, and any negative elements kept quiet. Racist stereotypes didn’t figure in conversation, although they had existed all along. Even the Yiddish leftist literati, who openly sympathized with the hardships of Black people, made use of such expressions.

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