Jacob Isaac Segal: A Montreal Yiddish Poet and His Milieu
Born in the Ukraine in 1896, and settling in Montreal in 1910, Segal became one of the first Yiddish writers in Canada. His poetry, infused with lyricism and mysticism, along with the numerous essays and articles he penned, embodied both a rich literary tradition and the modernism of his day.

Pierre Anctil has written so much more than a biography. For the first time, Segal’s poetic production is referenced, translated and rigorously analyzed, and includes over 100 pages of appendices, shedding light on the artistic, spiritual, cultural and historical importance of his oeuvre. By introducing the reader to the poet’s work through previously unpublished translations, Anctil demonstrates that in many respects it reflects the history of the Jewish immigrants who arrived in North America from Russia, the Ukraine and Poland at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the tragic experiences of Jewish intellectual refugees of the interwar period.

This admirably written, sweeping yet subtle, work will appeal both to scholars and to a broader audience.

Translated by Vivian Felsen
The original French version was awarded the prestigious 2014 Canada Prize in the Humanities by the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Finalist, 2018 Governor General’s Literary Awards (GGBooks), Translation category

Published in English.

1126850221
Jacob Isaac Segal: A Montreal Yiddish Poet and His Milieu
Born in the Ukraine in 1896, and settling in Montreal in 1910, Segal became one of the first Yiddish writers in Canada. His poetry, infused with lyricism and mysticism, along with the numerous essays and articles he penned, embodied both a rich literary tradition and the modernism of his day.

Pierre Anctil has written so much more than a biography. For the first time, Segal’s poetic production is referenced, translated and rigorously analyzed, and includes over 100 pages of appendices, shedding light on the artistic, spiritual, cultural and historical importance of his oeuvre. By introducing the reader to the poet’s work through previously unpublished translations, Anctil demonstrates that in many respects it reflects the history of the Jewish immigrants who arrived in North America from Russia, the Ukraine and Poland at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the tragic experiences of Jewish intellectual refugees of the interwar period.

This admirably written, sweeping yet subtle, work will appeal both to scholars and to a broader audience.

Translated by Vivian Felsen
The original French version was awarded the prestigious 2014 Canada Prize in the Humanities by the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Finalist, 2018 Governor General’s Literary Awards (GGBooks), Translation category

Published in English.

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Jacob Isaac Segal: A Montreal Yiddish Poet and His Milieu

Jacob Isaac Segal: A Montreal Yiddish Poet and His Milieu

Jacob Isaac Segal: A Montreal Yiddish Poet and His Milieu

Jacob Isaac Segal: A Montreal Yiddish Poet and His Milieu

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Overview

Born in the Ukraine in 1896, and settling in Montreal in 1910, Segal became one of the first Yiddish writers in Canada. His poetry, infused with lyricism and mysticism, along with the numerous essays and articles he penned, embodied both a rich literary tradition and the modernism of his day.

Pierre Anctil has written so much more than a biography. For the first time, Segal’s poetic production is referenced, translated and rigorously analyzed, and includes over 100 pages of appendices, shedding light on the artistic, spiritual, cultural and historical importance of his oeuvre. By introducing the reader to the poet’s work through previously unpublished translations, Anctil demonstrates that in many respects it reflects the history of the Jewish immigrants who arrived in North America from Russia, the Ukraine and Poland at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the tragic experiences of Jewish intellectual refugees of the interwar period.

This admirably written, sweeping yet subtle, work will appeal both to scholars and to a broader audience.

Translated by Vivian Felsen
The original French version was awarded the prestigious 2014 Canada Prize in the Humanities by the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Finalist, 2018 Governor General’s Literary Awards (GGBooks), Translation category

Published in English.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780776625713
Publisher: Les Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa/University of Ottawa Press
Publication date: 10/03/2017
Series: Canadian Studies , #3
Pages: 432
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.94(d)

About the Author

Pierre Anctil is an award-winning author, a member of the Royal Society of Canada since 2012 and a professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa, where he taught contemporary Canadian history and Canadian Jewish history. He has written at length on the history of Montreal’s Jewish community and on the current debates on cultural pluralism in Canada.
His most recent English-language titles are History of the Jews in Quebec (2021), Jacob Isaac Segal: A Montreal Yiddish Poet and His Milieu (2017) and A Reluctant Welcome for Jewish People: Voices in Le Devoir’s Editorials, 1910–1947 (2019), all at the University of Ottawa Press.

Read an Excerpt

In this book Pierre Anctil reveals to us a language we do not know, that of the Eastern European Jews who were escaping the pogroms in the Tsarist Empire, and later extermination by the Nazis during World War II.

Table of Contents

Translator’s Note xiii

Preface: A Quebec Lyric Poet xv

INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER 1

Arrival in Montreal 13

Factory Work 15

First Attempts at Writing 20

In the Pages of Jewish Daily Eagle 25

The Revelation of 1917 32

The Emergence of Yiddish Literature in Montreal 37

Caiserman in Montreal 41

The Poale Zion and the Founding of the Canadian Jewish Congress 45

The Urgent Call of Zionism 49

The Failed Russian Revolution of 1905 57

The Beginnings of a Jewish Proletariat in Montreal 62

CHAPTER 2

Leaving Korets 75

The Dawn of 1918 78

Intimist Writing 82

The Urban Aesthetic 85

The Canadian Winter 90

An Exemplary Influence 96

The Genesis of a Yiddish Poet 100

The Korets Talmud Torah and Its Nigun 105

First Literary Influences 109

Segal’s Maternal Grandfather 115

The Great Crossing 120

CHAPTER 3

First Literary Success 129

Bazunder lider (1921) 133

The New York Modernist Movement 140

The Journal Nyuansn 142

Under the Wing of Mani Leib 149

Fun mayn shtub un mayn velt (1923) 154

Lider (1926) 158

Caiserman, the First Yiddish Literary Critic 163

The Canadian Landscape 167

Following the Lead of the French-Canadian Poets 174

An Emerging Literature 178

CHAPTER 4

Toward a Golden Age 189

New Waves of Immigration 191

The Crash of 1929 198

Literary Salons and Book Committees 201

The Sinister Echoes of Nazism 206

Idishe dikhter in kanade (1934) 214

Caiserman as Literary Historian 219

The Poet at His Peak 225

The Great Mystical Watershed 229

The Agnostic Poet Before God 236

CHAPTER 5

The “Years of Lead”: The Holocaust and Its Aftermath 247

First Indications of Genocide 250

The End of a World 254

New Sources of Inspiration 259

Looking Toward Montreal 264

A Mystical Leap 270

A Chorus of Praise 275

The Contribution of the Holocaust Survivors 281

The Ravitch Galaxy 285

The Yiddish Writers Association 288

Twilight Reflections 293

The Final Exile 299

CONCLUSION 311

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