Brawlers, Crooks and Charlatans in the Yiddish Press with Eddy Portnoy

The 15th Annual Gus and Libby Solomon Memorial Lecture

January 30, 2020

7:30 pm | Free

Featuring Eddy Portnoy

The Seamy Underbelly of Yiddishland;

Brawlers, Crooks and Charlatans in the Yiddish Press

Smith Memorial Ballroom

1825 SW Broadway, Portland OR 97201

Doors open 7 pm, program begins 7:30 pm

Free and open to the public!

This event generously underwritten by Richard Solomon and Alyce Flitcraft.

Thank you to our generous sponsors: Jewish Federation of Greater Portland, Oregon Jewish Community Foundation, Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, and Portland State University Departments of World Languages and Literatures, Communication, and History.

Eddy Portnoy
has an MA in Yiddish from Columbia University and received his Ph.D from the Jewish Theological Seminary.
A specialist in Jewish popular culture, he has published in numerous academic journals and also in The Forward and in Tablet Magazine. He currently serves as Senior Researcher and Director of Exhibitions at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

Book available for purchase at the event!

Eddy Portnoy is the author of Bad Rabbi and Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press.

An underground history of downwardly mobile Jews, the book mines century-old Yiddish newspapers to expose the seamy underbelly of pre-WWII New York and Warsaw, the two major centers of Yiddish culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

With true stories of Jewish drunks, murderers, wrestlers, psychics and beauty queens, all plucked from the pages of Yiddish dailies, Eddy Portnoy reveals unusual and unexpected aspects of Jewish urban life. One part Isaac Bashevis Singer, one part Jerry Springer, this irreverent, unvarnished, and frequently hilarious compendium of stories provides a window into an unknown Yiddish world that was. Read an excerpt of the book here.

Bad Rabbi and Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press will be available for purchase during the event! Annie Bloom's Books will be onsite offering copies of the book for sale.

Listen to Eddy Portnoy speak on the history of the Yiddish press

Parking for the event?

Best bets on campus would be Parking Structure 1 or 2. "Know before you go" parking rates & info:

https://www.pdx.edu/transportation/hourly-visitor-parking

Note: After 7pm, access to Smith Memorial Student Union is limted to the main entrance on SW Broadway.

Offices of The Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies are located in

University Center Building, Suite 465 at 1881 SW 5th Avenue, Portland, OR 97201 | Tel. 503.725.8449

Portland State University | Judaic Studies PO Box 751 | Portland, OR 97207-0751 US

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