Title: A Breed Apart: Reflections of a Young RefugeeAuthor(s) Professor Miriam Hoffman
Published by: Yiddishkayt Press
A Miraculous Escape from Russia: From DP Camp to Columbia University and Beyond
A Remarkable Historical Journey and Legacy
From Siberia to Columbia University, this epic tale of war and survival is seen through the eyes of a young Miriam Hoffman and her father, Chaim Schmulewitz, a well-respected columnist of the Yiddish press Undzerweg. Highly personal and historic, A Breed Apart brings to light the oppression of the Soviet regime, the five-year history of the Displaced Persons Refugee Camps (DP camps) in Germany from 1946 to 1951, the struggles of post–World War II anti-Semitism, and Professor Hoffman’s coming of age in America.
Professor Miriam Hoffman earned her first Baccalaureate degree in 1957 from the Jewish Teachers Seminary in New York. She earned her second B.A. at the University of Miami and her Masters at Columbia University where she majored in Yiddish folklore and literature. As professor of Yiddish language, literature, Jewish culture, Yiddish humor, classical and minor Yiddish writers, and a course called 20th Century Yiddish Literature and Film, she taught at Columbia University from 1992 to 2015.
Miriam wrote the preeminent 700-page Yiddish textbook Key to Yiddish, which includes scholarly research, conversation, folklore, folktales, songs, and literary works by the most acclaimed Yiddish writers and poets. Key to Yiddish is now taught in many universities. She is a successful Yiddish playwright and the recipient of the Israeli Tony Award for her Yiddish translation of Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys. Miriam became the founder of the Joseph Papp Yiddish Theatre when famed Broadway impresario Joseph Papp produced her Yiddish/English musical Songs of Paradise. Her plays and translations have been produced to high acclaim worldwide.
Miriam has published thousands of articles as a feature writer for the Yiddish Forward since 1982. Since her retirement from Columbia, Professor Hoffman has stayed busy writing and lecturing worldwide. Visit her website at www.miriamhoffman.com
ISBN13: 978-0999336502
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