This slide lecture with Dr. Jeffrey Shandler examines an array of items found in post-World War II America featuring on or more Yiddish words on them. These works of material culture provide an unusual opportunity to consider the place Yiddish has found in American life in the post-Holocaust era. The lecture will focus on the language's complex symbolic role in American Jews' sense of identity and heritage, ranging from expressing nostalgia and piety to celebrating cultural subversion.

Program is free and open to the public thanks to a generous grant from the Legacy Heritage Jewish Studies Project.

All of the programs in Muhlenberg’s series were co-sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Lehigh Valley, the Berman Center for Jewish Studies at Lehigh University and the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding at Muhlenberg.