Rokhl's Golden City: Shalokhmones For Hitler and Dueling King Lears

I’ve wanted to be like Anna Shternshis pretty much since we met, back in the last century. Anna, barely a year or two year older than I, was teaching at the Oxford Yiddish Summer Institute. And I, a farbrente 22-year-old Yiddishist, was a student in the program. With her big dark eyes and pixie cut, Anna looked like a younger, Yiddish-er Liza Minelli and was working towards her D.Phil in Yiddish at Oxford. Why wouldn’t I want to be like her?

For about five memorable minutes Oxford offered a one-year teaching certificate in Yiddish, something I desperately wanted to do. Before I could even send in my application the program was canceled and yadda yadda yadda here we are. Anna is a beloved Jewish studies professor at the University of Toronto and I’m practicing backroom Yiddish cultural criticism sans certificate. Azoy geyt es (that’s how it goes).

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