The Annual Clara Sumpf Lecture Series featuring Eddy Portnoy (day 1)
CREEES Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies
History Department
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May 17
Headless Body Found in Topless Bar: Sensationalism and Scandal in the Yiddish Press
Yiddish mass media of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is well known for having served as a guide to the modern world for many Jewish readers, introducing them to new political and social concepts, as well as to literature and the arts. But it was also a business that needed to attract and maintain a readership. As a result, a distinctly YIddish form of sensationalism developed, one that reveals underreported aspects of Jewish life. Sometimes lurid, sometimes outright fabrications, journalists of the Yiddish press created a version of sensationalism that reflected the unique interests of their readership. Using examples from newspapers in New York and Warsaw, Eddy Portnoy will show how sensationalism functioned as a key feature of Yiddish journalism.
Co-sponsored with Stanford's Department of History, the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, and UC Berkeley's Center for Jewish Studies.
Join for one or both of these events.
Open to the public!
RSVP here