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Acknowledgments i am eternally grateful to Sarah Torchinsky, who gave me the words, and Ben Torchinsky, who helped her. My loving thanks to my father Jacob Gordin Kaplan and my uncle Edgar Kaplan, who gave me the genes; Lulla Rosenfeld, who gave me a push; Bonny Fetterman, who gave me several more pushes; Ruth Gay, who gave me the final shove; Great-Aunt Helen Gordin Zielstein and first cousin once removed Anna Richmond, who talked; my grandparents Nettie Gordin and Mike Kaplan; my mother Sylvia and brother Michael; my New York family and hosts Ted Kaplan and Lola Sherwin; Wayson Choy, Aaron Lansky, Margie Davidson , Ronald Bryden, for editorial support and friendship, inspiration and books; the Yiddish scholars Joel Berkowitz, Nina Warnke, Barbara Henry, Rachel Rubin, Martin Boris, Elly Margolis, Caraid O’Brien, John Klier, Gerry Kane, and David Mazower ; Vivian Felson, Miriam Beckerman, Irene Bimman, and Janina Wurbs, who did more translation; Dina Abramowitz, Marek Web, and Yeshaya Metal at the YIVO; Faith Jones at the New York Public Library; my friends Lynn Bevan and Terry Poulton; my agent, Richard Curtis; and my editor, Ken Frieden, who, with his estimable colleagues at Syracuse University Press, brought the book at last to light. And I am profoundly grateful to all the advisors, readers, and supporters who have kept me going for more than twenty years, including Edgar Dobie, Marilyn Biderman, David Kent, Yiddish Artists and Friends, Shifra Lerer, Bernard Mandelovich , Nathan Gross, Irene Blum, Milly Marmur, the Banff Centre for the Arts, Eli Rubinstein, Charis Wahl, Susan Renouf, Ward McBurney, Eilat Gordin, Alberto Ruy Sanchez, Pat Kennedy, Florence Rosberg, Larry Mirkin, Stephen Strauss, Kathleen Gassi, Toronto Friends of Yiddish, particularly Nathan Garnick, Bess Shockett, and Ralph Wintrob, and to George and Caryl Gordin, Beth Shore, Dave Sanders, and all the Gordins I have not yet met. 267 To Patsy Ludwick and Chris Tyrell, my fellow writers who are always there, if not in person then on the screen. And most of all, to my beloved children, Anna Elizabeth and Samuel Jacob Edgar, and to their great-great grandfather, who lives on in my blood and theirs. 268 Acknowledgments ...

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