Streetwalking Paris: Transgressive Citiscapes

Between the two World Wars, Paris was a magnet for eastern European Jews fleeing oppression and attracted by it promise of equality. After World War II, it was a haven for displaced Jewish survivors of the Shoah. Yiddish narratives convey the allure of the city, whose landmarks suggest an aesthetics and openness that conflict with the more traditional eastern European Jewish culture. This presentation will juxtapose the Paris citiscapes of Sarah Kofman and Georges Perec with the conflicting desires evoked in the Yiddish literary encounter with Paris in Avrom Sutzkever’s Paris poems and Chaim Grade’s Paris novella.