Confronting Representations of Black People in Yiddish Culture with Professor Gil Ribak

Join us for a thought-provoking presentation with Professor Gil Ribak as he unveils the groundbreaking research behind his forthcoming book, Crude Creatures: Confronting Representations of Black People in Yiddish Culture (NYU Press, October 2025). Challenging the long-held assumption that Eastern European Jewish immigrants consistently expressed solidarity with African Americans, Ribak reveals a far more complex and often troubling cultural record. Drawing from previously unexamined Yiddish newspapers, literature, theater, and popular culture through 1929, he exposes the ways in which deeply rooted stereotypes—imported from rabbinic texts, folklore, travel narratives, and early scientific discourse—shaped immigrant Jewish depictions of Black women and men. This illuminating and essential talk invites audiences to reconsider familiar narratives of Black-Jewish relations and to grapple with what these cultural portrayals can teach us about race, identity, and the immigrant encounter with America’s racial hierarchy.

Gil Ribak is the Shirley D. Curson Associate Professor at the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Arizona. A leading scholar of Jewish cultural history, he is the author of Gentile New York: The Images of Non-Jews Among Jewish Immigrants and a frequent lecturer on the intersections of ethnicity, race, and immigrant identity. Ribak’s work is known for its depth, clarity, and willingness to interrogate widely accepted narratives. His forthcoming book, Crude Creatures, has already earned acclaim from scholars across multiple disciplines for its courage, rigor, and revisionist insight.

Register to join us online on February 19 at 7:00 p.m. ET. Please contact cajl@tisrael.org with questions.