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East European Jewish Affairs

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Exposing Yiddish Paris: the Modern Jewish Culturepavilion at the 1937 World's Fair

Nick Underwood

To cite this article: Nick Underwood (2016) Exposing Yiddish Paris: the Modern JewishCulture pavilion at the 1937 World's Fair, East European Jewish Affairs, 46:2, 160-175, DOI:10.1080/13501674.2016.1199189

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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Exposing Yiddish Paris: the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion atthe 1937 World’s FairNick Underwood

Department of History, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

ABSTRACTDuring the 1930s, Paris was home to approximately two millionimmigrants. Around 150,000 of these were Yiddish-speaking Jewsfrom Eastern Europe who used Paris as the basis for a newWestern European influenced Yiddishism and DiasporaNationalism. This paper traces the high point of that interwarParisian Yiddish internationalist cultural development, the ModernJewish Culture pavilion at the 1937 World’s Fair. Through ananalysis that places the pavilion within its immigrant Jewish andinterwar Popular Front Parisian contexts, this article argues thatthe Modern Jewish Culture pavilion represented the culminationof decades of leftist cultural work in Paris. The Modern JewishCulture pavilion highlighted both universal and particular aspectsof Yiddish culture and placed them on display in the mostinternational way possible. Buttressed by the rise in Europeanfascism, antisemitism, and antifascism, Yiddish culture-makers inParis created a cultural display that presented a sophisticated,global, pan-leftist Yiddish culture that spoke to Jews and non-Jews around the world in an attempt to preserve the burgeoningglobal Yiddish culture and stave off fascism.

KEYWORDSPopular Front; World’s Fair;Interwar; Paris; ModernJewish Culture pavilion;antifascism; Yiddishism;Diaspora Nationalism

Sholem Aleichem appeared in Paris in 1937, in portrait form, at two locations at the Expo-sition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (International ExpositionDedicated to Arts and Technologies in Modern Life), better known as the 1937 World’s Fair.He could be spotted at the Soviet Union’s pavilion as well as at the pavilion dedicated tomodern Jewish culture. On the walls of the Soviet pavilion, Sholem Aleichem’s portraithung next to Maxim Gorky’s, which, according to Yiddish scholar Gennady Estraikh, “sym-bolized their belonging to the same ideological and aesthetic league.”1 In the ModernJewish Culture pavilion, Sholem Aleichem’s likeness hung next to I.L. Peretz’s along withother visual and textual representations of the development of Yiddish culture duringthe nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion,Sholem Aleichem, as we will see, symbolized the visual and literary tools necessary topresent a diaspora Jewish national identity.

Immigrant, Yiddish-speaking Jews were just one of the many groups that made inter-war Paris an immigrant city. By the early 1930s, there were approximately two million

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

CONTACT Nick Underwood nicholas.underwood@colorado.edu

EAST EUROPEAN JEWISH AFFAIRS, 2016VOL. 46, NO. 2, 160–175http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13501674.2016.1199189

people of foreign provenance in France.2 Jewish immigrants from Central and EasternEurope numbered approximately 150,000 in France by the mid-1930s, making France,and especially Paris, a meeting point for Jews escaping fascist and authoritarianregimes in Nazi Germany, Hungary, and Poland. In 1937, two events would positionParis as an important locale of global Yiddish culture and, as I will show, an unexpectedoutpost of Jewish Diaspora Nationalism – the creation of the Modern Jewish Culture pavi-lion, which then led to the First International Yiddish Culture Congress.3 Yiddish speakersin Paris, like their counterparts whose writings were captured in the Yiddish Scientific Insti-tute’s (YIVO’s) “Awakening Lives” project, manifested an “idiosyncratic, hybridized politi-cal” profile.4 In Paris, this complicated cultural and political identity formed amongpolitically engaged Yiddish speakers as a result of decades of leftist cultural work thatbegan in the early 1920s, and set the stage for the antifascist cultural and politicalcooperation among divergent Jewish groups of the late 1930s.

Paris is often left off the interwar Yiddish map; in fact, through the 1930s and into thepostwar period, the “City of Light” served as a hub of Yiddish culture.5 With Yiddish culture-makers in Paris such as the Yiddish activist and writer Aron Beckerman; members of thefamed international Yiddish theatre group the Vilna Troupe, Jacob Rothbaum and DavidLicht; and Léon Glaeser, the Yiddish culture-maker and founder of the first Yiddish culturalorganization in Paris, La Culture juive (1920–2), and subsequently one of the Parisian foun-ders of the Yidisher kultur farband (YKUF/Jewish Culture Association), and also vice-chair-person of YIVO Paris.6

Additionally, France was the only country in Western Europe to host a YIVO office andbranches of the Kultur-lige and Arbeter-ring. Therefore, it is clear that Paris was importantto the development of transnational, interwar Yiddish culture. With the opening of theModern Jewish Culture pavilion and the First International Yiddish Culture Congress in1937, Paris had arguably become one of the main European and global centers of thattransnational Yiddish culture. An analysis of the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion showshow immigrant Jewish activists in Paris – at the height of the Popular Front and on theheels of almost two decades of leftist cultural work – used Yiddish culture as a catalystfor creating a unified, international cultural front against fascism and a means of embody-ing a kind of diaspora nation.

The World’s Fair in Paris, 1937

The 1937 World’s Fair was a grand event. Between its opening onMay 24 and its closure onNovember 25, over 30 million people visited the Fair.7 The fastest planes, the latestfashions, televisions, new advents in refrigeration, plastics, cultures, fascism, antifascism,communism, democracy, republicanism, and Yiddish culture representing 42 nationsand several territories were on display to visitors. World’s Fair attendees could alsoenjoy rollercoasters and other exciting new and exhilarating rides.

Upon arrival, after paying the six-franc entry fee, visitors entered the Fair through theturnstiles, located at the Trocadéro. There were other points of entry, but Fair organizersimagined this as the primary introduction to the Fair, perhaps to create a unified experi-ence of this carefully constructed survey of global accomplishments.8 Once on thegrounds, one could choose either to walk or to ride one of the new trackless electrictrams.9 Visitors wandering the fairgrounds, which were located between the Champ de

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Mars and the Trocadéro, could gaze at some of the new inventions on display within thepavilions, such as the television on view in the Photo-Ciné-Phono pavilion. If one chose tovisit at night, the pavilions were lit, creating a beautifully illuminated global microcosm;one could also stand in awe as the Eiffel Tower was showered in fireworks.

No matter one’s choice of transportation, one’s initial experiences at the Fair wouldhave been similar. One would have begun one’s exposure to the latest in art and technol-ogy in modern life with a stroll through the foreign sections (Sections Étrangères). In thesesections, nestled between Luxembourg’s and Romania’s pavilions, you would have alsoencountered one of the two Jewish pavilions at the World’s Fair, the Land of Israel in Pales-tine Pavilion (Pavillon Terre d’Israël en Palestine). According to the official guide, it “ha[d] asmall curved patio set against a façade with stained glass… [and] four rooms… The first[room], named after Lord [Arthur James] Balfour, contains documents of the political andsocial structure of the Jewish homeland in Palestine, the second relates to economic devel-opment… the third room [focuses on] agriculture and industry and the fourth is dedi-cated to intellectual life and technical research and features reflections by BaronEdouard de Rothschild and the poet Hayim Nahman Bialik… In the eastern courtyard,there is a tourism kiosk.”10 The Land of Israel in Palestine Pavilion, according to historianJay Winter, “was constructed to refute every calumny the Nazis and their fellow travelershad leveled against Jews.”11

Before crossing the Seine via the Pont d’Iéna, one would have passed Spain’s pavilion,which contained Picasso’s antifascist masterpiece Guernica, only to find oneself envelopedby the now iconic image of the 1937 World’s Fair – the faceoff between the Soviet Unionand Nazi Germany. These two pavilions towered over the esplanade across which theywere both built. In doing so, they created a symbolic framing of the ongoing SpanishCivil War between Republicans, and the support the Soviet Union gave them, andFranco’s military, for which Nazi Germany supplied materiel and other armaments.12

One would then walk under the Eiffel Tower and by the aforementioned Photo-Ciné-Phono pavilion. One would then continue down the Champ de Mars to pass theMexican, Iraqi, and Venezuelan pavilions, a grand collection of art, and the restaurant,to make one’s way to the International Pavilion (Pavillon International), home of theModern Jewish Culture pavilion.

Scholarship on the 1937 World’s Fair has applied five primary analytic lenses: the rolethat the pavilions played in visualizing Soviet, Nazi, and European political and culturalexchange; folklore as displayed in the French Rural pavilions; new French cultural andmuseum projects created for the Fair; the Fair as a modernist spectacle or “utopian”moment; and the importance of the Fair with regard to art history.13 In studies of theFair’s Jewish context, scholars are most interested in its proto-Zionist aspects.14 There is,however, a Yiddishist and Diaspora Nationalist context that has been ignored by mostof the scholarship. The World’s Fair, by way of the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion,offers a glimpse into what immigrant Jews in Paris felt was important, both culturallyand politically, in interwar Paris – namely, creating a space from which the communitarianaspects of Parisian Yiddish culture could be displayed alongside and as a part of globalYiddish culture, thus elevating the status of Paris as an international center of Yiddishculture.

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The Modern Jewish Culture pavilion

On August 14, 1937, the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion opened at the World’s Fair – thiswas the first ever pavilion at a World’s Fair dedicated to “modern Jewish culture.”15

The Paris-based communist Yiddish daily newspaper Naye prese reported on theopening, saying, “Here in the Trocadéro: the Eiffel Tower, pavilions of the press, of food,of Algeria – and we now find our cultural pavilion nestled within the enormous Inter-national Pavilion… In each [other] pavilion, you find a map. But these are maps of acountry, from a region. In the Jewish pavilion you find a world map.”16

The Modern Jewish Culture pavilion cost 8,308 French francs to construct (no small cost,and it appears that the organizing committee had difficulty paying the bill),17 was 3,607square feet (335 square meters) in size, and was part of the larger, International Pavilion(64,583 square feet/6,000 square meters), located on the Champ de Mars. The ideabehind the International Pavilion was that it could provide space – in the form of stalls,or booths – where countries could display materials that did not fit into their larger pavi-lions. Albania, Nazi Germany, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Spain, Great Britain,Poland, the Soviet Union, and Romania took advantage of the room for expandeddisplay. In addition to these national annexes and the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion,the World ORT Union, an “Albanian group,” and a “Chinese intellectual communityunder the auspices of the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation” also builtbooths.18

The materials and information on display in the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion rep-resented a wide range of international and Parisian Yiddish history and culture. Accordingto an August 1, 1937, World’s Fair report, the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion featured “sec-tions on the Jewish press, Emigration, Arts, Science, teaching standards, the organizationsof public utility, etc… The Jewish Scientific Institute in Vilna will gather treasures of greathistorical value. More than 8,000 issues of Yiddish newspapers will be there, as well as hun-dreds of valuable manuscripts, a magnificent library containing thousands and thousandsof volumes relating to demography, emigration, the national economy of the Jewishpeople, folklore, and the single Jewish Theatre museum in the world.”19

The Fair’s administration was a mix of French politicians who sought to develop a trulyglobal exposition experience. Paul Bastid, Minister of Commerce and Industry, was chair,and French politicians, such as Joseph Caillaux and Paul Léon, were also involved. Léon,most notably, had grand visions of the “global clientele” who would attend the Fair.20

Taking place during the height of the pan-leftist Popular Front in France, the World’sFair developed to project a particular kind of antifascism. The Fair would also highlightanother aspect of the Popular Front in France, which was to increase understanding ofimmigrant cultural contributions to France, including Yiddish ones. Therefore it is no sur-prise that the World’s Fair administration stated, “As for the Jews themselves, this Expo-sition will be a call for a renewal of activity full of courage, despite and against thestifling atmosphere and moral and material poverty of the Jewish people to live andfight.”21 In some reports, administrators went so far as to make special note of themeaning of Jewish involvement in the exposition, saying “the 1937 International Expo-sition in Paris is enriched by the participation, in particular, of one section – the modernJewish culture pavilion,” illustrating the extent to which advocating for Jewish culturecould be seen as an antifascist and pro-republican act, especially in Popular Front France.22

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The Association Simon Dubnov – which had moved to Paris from Berlin in the wake ofthe rise of the Nazis in order to continue its work on a Yiddish Encyclopedia project –approached the World’s Fair administration about developing a Yiddish culture pavilionwithin the International Pavilion in April 1937.23 As an organization dedicated to SimonDubnov’s Diaspora Nationalist ideology and initiative, they were inevitably one of thegroups in Paris involved in organizing the development of the Modern Jewish Culturepavilion. Ultimately, the Association’s director, Raphael Abramovich, a Menshevik andmember of the Bund originally from Riga who settled in Paris after leaving Berlin in1933, would serve as the president of the pavilion’s committee.24 The committeeworked with a range of Yiddish organizations, including YIVO, the Central YiddishSchool Organization (TSYSHO), and the Arbeter-ring to develop the broad spectrum ofYiddish culture on display in the pavilion.25 According to an undated report from theYIVO Paris office, these organizations met in Paris on March 17, 1937, to address the ques-tion of what to include in the pavilion.26 Those in attendance at the meeting, whichincluded Yiddish culture-makers from a variety of Parisian organizations, all recognizedthat “a Jewish Pavilion will not only present a clear and prominent image of what wehave achieved over the past generations, but will also clarify to the world that Jews arenot objects of various programs and projects, but a living, productive community,which does its part to contribute to human culture.”27 In addition to Abramovich, the plan-ning committee also included the sculptor Naoum Aronson; the painters Marc Chagall andMané Katz; the writers Sholem Asch, Zalman Shneour, and Dovid Eynhorn; the leader ofWorld ORT, Léon Bramson; Russian Jewish scholar Julius Brutzkus; French politicianJustin Godart; French politician and attorney, Henri Torres, who led Sholom Schwartzbard’ssuccessful defense in 1927 after he was brought to trial for assassinating Symon Petlura inthe streets of Paris in 1926;28 member of the Paris Consistory, Vice-President of the Allianceisraélite universelle, and President of the Central Board of the World ORT Union, ProfessorWilliam Oualid; and the French historian Robert Anchel.

Within the pages of Naye prese, coverage of the 1937 World’s Fair began in 1934.29

However, there was no indication at that time that the immigrant Jewish community inParis planned to develop a pavilion for the exposition. In fact, the World’s Fair was lam-basted for its capitalist and bourgeois sensibilities. Naye prese lamented the “Montpar-nasse Bohemians who would spend the American millions,” making it clear that, priorto the Popular Front’s victory in France, communists saw World’s Fairs as colonialist enter-prises, especially in the wake of the 1931 World’s Fair in Paris – the “International ColonialExposition.”30 As a communist newspaper, Naye prese criticized the World’s Fair as a colo-nial enterprise. In 1934, prior to the Popular Front’s electoral victory in 1936, they had noreason to think that the World’s Fair in Paris would be any different from previous ones.Therefore, early coverage of the World’s Fair followed a communist, anti-colonialist ideol-ogy. The inauguration of the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion at the Popular Front’s World’sFair, however, would alter this disdain for international expositions. In 1937, Naye prese sawthe World’s Fair as a tool for unity among the Parisian and international Yiddish-speakingJewish community.

Naye prese’s coverage was extensive and highlights how Yiddish communists under-stood their place within the greater Yiddish cultural landscape, both domestically andinternationally. Naye prese ran articles on the pavilion on each of the three days leadingup to its opening and ran a series of columns on the exhibition throughout August. Its

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coverage reveals that the pavilion displayed the murals Marc Chagall created for theMoscow State Yiddish Theatre in 1920 as well as information about PYAT (Parizer yidisherarbeter [which after 1935 became the avangard] teater/Parisian Yiddish Workers’ [Avant-garde] Theatre) – a Yiddish-language theatre troupe.31 During the 1937 theatre season,PYAT staged Sholem Aleichem’s Dos farkishefte shnayderl (The bewitched tailor) to widefanfare within both the Yiddish- and French-language press, further illustrating theextent to which the works of Sholem Aleichem could be used as a way to “engagethe Jewish masses.”32 Additionally, Naye prese made it known that “Paris would be theperfect place [to host the pavilion] because of all of its cultural institutions and syndi-cates.”33 A look into the pavilion from mid-August told readers that the pavilion had infor-mation on “Jews in the World,” “The Yiddish language,” “Literature and Press,” “TheWorkers’Movement,” and “Paris.” In the section dedicated to Paris, Naye prese tied the sec-tions on general Jewish history and culture to the City of Light. Starting with the claim that“there are 100,000 Yiddish speakers in Paris” and then quickly turning to the “18,150workers who are in the clothing industry” and the “9,000 of those who are organized inthe C.G.T. [Confédération générale du travail],” Naye prese made it clear that Paris’Yiddish social and cultural scenes were part and parcel of the exhibitions displayed inthe pavilion.34 To further these ties, the article highlighted Paris’ Yiddish theatre scene,libraries, and schools. It also noted that France had a “Popular Front minister,” which,given that this is a reference to France’s first Jewish and socialist prime minister LéonBlum (even though his tenure as prime minister ended in June 1937), one can understandthis to mean a “Jewish” Popular Front minister.35

Naye prese also highlighted the political and antifascist importance of the pavilion’sopening, saying, “At a time when racism is becoming a viable commodity and it iscommon to hear of ‘the inferior Jewish race,’ the pavilion presents a proud responsethat, despite all of the bloody disturbances, the Jewish masses continue to thrive.”36

Naye prese furthermore added that “the opening [of the pavilion] is therefore notsimply a major cultural festival, it is a major political demonstration.”37 To further locateParis, and France more generally, as a place that could welcome and catalyze a flourishingYiddish culture, Naye prese concluded, “The opening will welcome a distinguished repre-sentative of the French government,” implying French governmental support for andinterest in its immigrant Jews.38 On August 15, Naye prese ran a front-page piece dedicatedto the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion, which featured a quote from the opening remarksof Léo Lagrange, French Under-Secretary of State for Sports and for the Organization ofLeisure during the Popular Front. Here Lagrange stated, “Jews are not foreigners inFrance.”39 “France has opened its traditions of democracy and humanity,” quoted Nayeprese, “and the Jews are happy to have a modest role in the World’s Fair.”40 Quick topoint out the French notion of “unity,” Naye prese again cited Lagrange’s speech inwhich he praised “The French tradition that had attracted Heinrich Heine and KarlMarx,” and expressed the hope that “a visit to the pavilion will provide an answer forthose who want to remove the ideals of goodness and justice from their hearts.”41 Nayeprese therefore perceived the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion as a clear call for antifascismand anti-racism as well as antisemitism.

Parizer haynt, the Zionist-leaning Parisian outpost of the Warsaw-based Haynt, alsowrote extensively on the opening of the World’s Fair.42 Unlike Naye prese, however,whose reportage focused specifically on the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion, Parizer

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haynt’s coverage was much more diverse, detailing first the exhibition as a whole, andthen focusing on some of the individual pavilions, including the Modern Jewish Culturepavilion. Parizer haynt’s reports help foster a broader understanding of how Eastern Euro-pean Jewish immigrants interpreted the importance of the World’s Fair.

Parizer haynt celebrated the World’s Fair’s “many wonderful things on display,” and pro-vided its readers with information on the exposition, from ticket prices to the opening dayprogram as well as a list of pavilion opening dates (not all pavilions were completed intime for the opening of the Fair, so some opened late).43 When the Fair gates finallyopened, Parizer haynt’s editor Aron Alperin wrote, “Today the International Expositionopens in Paris… This is a momentous day for the Republic and for democracy.”44 In afull-page follow up report, Parizer haynt printed Léon Blum’s remarks and featuredNaoum Aronson’s sculpture, “France Embraces all Races,” which was on display in theFrench Colonial Pavilion. Parizer haynt called Aronson’s piece a “strong symbol againstrace-hatred.”45 Aronson also sculpted a bust of Lenin, which was on display in theSoviet pavilion. Parizer haynt’s coverage of the World’s Fair illustrates how the immigrantJewish community within Paris celebrated the universalist and anti-racist aspects of theFair as a whole while also maintaining its republican and democratic triumphs.

What marks Parizer haynt’s coverage as unique within the Parisian Yiddish press was itsattention to both the World’s Fair as a whole as well as the two Jewish pavilions – theModern Jewish Culture pavilion and the Land of Israel in Palestine Pavilion. Nisn Frank,a culture critic for Parizer haynt who was also a popular Yiddish novelist in interwarFrance, wrote of the opening of the two pavilions that, taken together, the Land ofIsrael in Palestine Pavilion, the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion, and the First InternationalYiddish Culture Congress will “increase Jewish interest in the Paris Exhibition andstrengthen the Jewish spirit.”46 In a column dedicated exclusively to the Modern JewishCulture pavilion’s opening, Parizer haynt described some of the “well-known” paintersinvolved in the pavilion’s development in order to create a picture of Jewish cultural cohe-sion that lay at the pavilion’s foundation. In its description of the organizing committee,Parizer hayntmentioned that Abramovich also served as the editor of the Yiddish Encyclo-pedia – it was the only newspaper to focus on this aspect of Abramovich’s cultural workin Paris – and concluded, “all can come and see and enjoy the stature of Jewish massculture… all will see what makes up the modern Jewish Cultural renaissance.”47 Wolf Wie-viorka, a Yiddish writer in Paris originally from Poland, wrote an article that focused on thewalls of the pavilion dedicated to Jewish history, theatre, and Jewish Paris. Here, he com-mented, “the bottom line is that the Yiddish Culture Exhibition in the International Pavilionis, without a doubt, a fresh take on people’s culture at this international forum.”48 Parizerhaynt, like Naye prese, was enthusiastic about the World’s Fair and what it meant for theglobal struggle against racism and antisemitism as well as support for republican anddemocratic values. Although the Zionist daily was supportive of the Land of Israel in Pales-tine Pavilion, it surprisingly paid more attention to the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion,publishing accolades by some of its best-known journalists.

The Modern Jewish Culture pavilion offered a Yiddish-centered take on Jewish culturethat did not go unnoticed by both the French Jewish press and the non-Jewish press. Thecoverage of the French Jewish press of the opening of the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion,gives insight into how some communities outside of Paris understood the pavilion. LaTribune juive, the Zionist-leaning weekly magazine published in Strasbourg, argued that,

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although it welcomed the pavilion, it ought to be considered a pavilion of modern Yiddishculture, not “Jewish” culture. As it stated:

The Jewish culture section that opened last Saturday at the International Pavilion… is quitespecial: it represents the modern Yiddish movement that is trying with great skill to elevate… Yiddish to the rank of a civilized language…We are not too surprised to learn that between eleven and seventeen million Jews in the worldspeak Yiddish. The presentations on the secular Jewish schools in Poland are also very inter-esting because western Europeans rarely have the occasion to learn of these initiatives.This exhibition would be perfect if it were made under the name “modern Yiddish culture”because it does not show modern “Jewish” culture. Religion and Hebrew cannot beremoved from modern Jewish culture, if one is trying to maintain the appearance ofobjectivity…The opening was chaired by Mr. Abramowicz [sic] who said that the purpose of the pavilionwas to demonstrate how Yiddishists transformed a religious group into a national minority.49

Although it celebrated the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion as “quite special,” La Tribunejuive took umbrage with the assumption that the pavilion represented modern “Jewish”culture because they felt it obfuscated religion, Zionism, and Hebrew-language culture.La Tribune juive felt that these too were fundamental components of modern “Jewish”culture. Despite its Zionist and more traditional religious tendencies, however, LaTribune juive still viewed the pavilion in a positive light because of its cultural content, not-withstanding the fact that it may not have supported the pavilion’s political leanings.

The Pariser Tageszeitung, the German-language exile press in Paris, further illuminatesthe content and context of the pavilion and demonstrates the Modern Jewish Culturepavilion’s reach outside of Yiddish Paris.50 Its coverage shows that “The pavilion is an inter-esting survey of Jewish cultural work… [including the following quotes written on thewall]: ‘Why did they have to be so bad when they could as well have been good?,’ asaying by Sholem Aleichem, and [I.L.] Peretz’s: ‘That the world may finally be freed fromsuffering and torment’” – a quote used to highlight Peretz’s socialist sentiments.51 Thearticle also quoted Abramovich’s welcome address during which he said that the pavilionis “a modest exhibition that testifies to the Jewish spirit and Jewish culture.”52 A reportfrom Le Populaire, the French Socialist daily newspaper, similarly stated, “During a timewhen racism and antisemitism tend to flourish worldwide, the Modern Jewish Culturepavilion takes the moral high ground.”53

The World’s Fair administrative reports and the French- and German-language presscoverage highlight the “suffering,” “racism,” and “antisemitism” of the period. By placingthe importance of the pavilion within the context of international racism and antisemitism,these reports situated the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion in a framework that resonatedbeyond France. The World’s Fair considered the pavilion to be part of the “InternationalPavilion” – despite the fact that it originated among Jews living in Paris. This placement,however, could have easily been determined by practical considerations more than anycomment on how the organizers saw Yiddish-speaking Jews’ place within Frenchsociety. Let us not forget that the Yiddish-speaking Jews approached the World’s Fairvery late to discuss the possibility of creating a pavilion and had trouble paying themodest bill in late 1937. It is very possible that constructing an actual, freestanding pavi-lion was completely out of the question. That being said, it seems as if placement withinthe “International Pavilion” shaded some interpretations of the pavilion. Similarly, the

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German- and French-language coverage did not place the pavilion within the Franco-Jewish cultural scene. Rather, it was placed within a larger pan-European Jewish culture,which was part of the pavilion’s point. Coverage within the Parisian Yiddish-languagepress, most notably Naye prese, however, made it clear that the connection to Paris, andto France as a whole, was as important as understanding the larger international com-ponents of the pavilion.

Parisian Yiddish writers also worked as World’s Fair correspondents for the Yiddish pressoutside of France. Within this journalistic context, a more intricately balanced messageabout the World’s Fair appeared. For example, the short-lived Chernovitzer bleter hiredAron Beckerman as their World’s Fair correspondent.54 Beckerman, an immigrant Jewfrom Poland living in Paris, was a prolific interwar journalist and writer with close ties toNaye prese.55 Within the pages of Chernovitzer bleter, Beckerman wove the internationalist(communist), French (republican and leftist), and Jewish (Yiddishist and Diaspora Nation-alist) narratives together to develop a wider understanding about the Fair and the ModernJewish Culture pavilion. Beckerman wrote one long article on the entire exposition andanother shorter one on the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion. In the piece on the Fair, Beck-erman highlighted two aspects of the event. First was the theme of “humanity” presentedin most pavilions, and the other was a virtual walking tour of the grounds. In his thematicfocus, Beckerman, in a scathing evaluation of the false internationalism on display, stated,“It has been quickly forgotten that colored people are being lynched in the world. Peoples,languages, continents (I left out the conventional word: races) have here all forgotten theirlearned hatreds, they rejoice in all the differences that create one harmonious totality:humanity.”56 His second, shorter piece on the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion tooksome of the threads from the earlier piece and stitched them together to create alarger appreciation of the pavilion and its meaning. “The pavilion finds itself near theGerman Pavilion… the Germans have created a wall against the Jewish Culture pavilion,”Beckerman stated.57 The wall he mentioned was not represented in photographs andcould be understood as metaphorical. Beckerman then internationalized the pavilion bytying the growth of modern Jewish culture to the growth of the modern world. Hestated, “words throughout the entire pavilion are in Yiddish and French… a largecaption tells the world ‘nineteenth century creations by great Jewish proletariats inRussia, the United States, and other countries are a major factor of modern Jewishculture.’”58 Beckerman was a master at playing the role of both insider and outsider.59

In Chernovitzer bleter, he described the World’s Fair to an external, non-French, audience,despite the fact that he was firmly entrenched in Parisian interwar Yiddish culture. Hisreports illustrated how Yiddish culture-makers in Paris viewed the Fair and their role asculture creators as well as how they wanted to portray the Fair and pavilion to those con-nected to a global Yiddish cultural world, even though most of these people could notattend the exposition. Beckerman’s emphasis on the grandiosity of the World’s Fair andthe sophisticated, international aspect of its composition reflected his desire to positionthe Modern Jewish Culture pavilion as both particularly Jewish and universalist thoughhis connections to both Yiddish and global culture as developing in tandem during themodern era. It also provided him with an opportunity to use the Modern Jewish Culturepavilion as a weapon in the fight against antisemitism and fascism in Europe by highlight-ing its proximity to Germany’s pavilion and the Fair’s overall anti-racist and humanist sen-sibility, even if he made note of the hypocrisy at play.

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Beyond the newspapers, Yiddish culture-makers in Paris used two other mechanisms tofurther the reach of the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion – one a series of postcards; theother a guidebook titled Pariz: yidish hant-bukh: veg-vayzer un firer (Paris: A Jewish Hand-book and Guidebook), which Beckerman edited. Each told a different story about theWorld’s Fair and the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion. They also illustrate how the admin-istrative committee attempted to present the Fair and pavilion to its visitors.

The postcards depicted and described three specific yet complementary Jewish histori-cal narratives – global Jewish history, Jews in France, and Yiddish cultural history. They alsohad a pedagogical aim, which, because they featured several languages, was directedtowards both the non-Jewish and the Jewish community. Among the postcards thatshowed global Jewish history, one highlighted “Jewish migrations in Europe overtwenty-six centuries.”60 It used Yiddish, French, and English. Along with the text was amap of Europe which illustrated biblical and historic paths of Jewish migration. The post-card also included several smaller images that illustrated Jewish culture throughoutEurope. Other postcards relating to this theme highlighted where Jews lived globallyand developments within the Jewish workers’ movement.

Whereas the focus of the aforementioned postcards was international, one titled“100,000 Jews in Paris who speak Yiddish” was aimed at a domestic audience. This post-card also carried the most text. It was written in French and Yiddish and gave informationon the Jewish community in Paris – how they made a living, their youth organizations,their supplementary schools, their popular universities, their mutual aid societies, theirunions, and their newspapers (it only named Naye prese and Parizer haynt).61 There wasalso a section that listed cultural organizations in Paris: Kultur-front, Kultur-lige, MedemFarband, “the writers group Parizer zhurnal,” and PYAT. Although the section headingswere in Yiddish and French, the texts that expanded on each topic were in Yiddish.These postcards, which were presumably handed out at the pavilion (according to theInternational Pavilion’s rules and regulations, booths could not sell anything), createdvisual representations of the pavilion and its meanings. Modern Jewish and Yiddishculture was an international and European phenomenon on display in Paris – a citythat, in addition to its republican history centered on “unity,” had thriving immigrant cul-tures, including Yiddish culture.

The postcards that represented Yiddish cultural history focused on Yiddish literature,language, and the press. The postcard dedicated to “Yiddish literature,” one of the keybuilding blocks of any national identity according to Ernst Gelner, makes it clear thatthese postcards were made from photos of the walls of the pavilion.62 The image onthe postcard centers on “Yiddish Literature during the Nineteenth Century” and has pic-tures of Mendele Mocher Sforim, Sholem Aleichem, and I.L. Peretz, “the classics” accordingto the text, and, unfortunately, what was displayed on the right and left of this section wascut off. Nevertheless, we can see that the left listed “the precursors,” and included thenames of 10 mid-nineteenth-century Yiddish authors: Mordkhe Spektor, Isaac Joel Line-tzky, Avrom Ber Gotlober, Solomon Ettinger, Isaac Baer Levinsohn, and Israel Aksenfeld,among others. The right side of the postcard listed 22 “modern” writers, including Sh.An-sky, Sholem Asch, Mane Leib, Dovid Bergelson, H. Leivick, Dovid Eynhorn, ShmuelNiger, Joseph Opatoshu, Moyshe Leib Halperin, and Chaim Zhitlovsky, among others.Because of these postcards, we are able to reconstruct the look of the pavilion.

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The walls of the pavilion utilized text to name the various displays – these headingswere all in French. No Yiddish was used by itself in the titles of any of the walls. IfYiddish was used, as it was in the section describing Paris, it played only a secondary,explanatory role. The walls were covered almost floor to ceiling in text, maps, graphs,and images. In a few sections, props were used to augment the theme. For example,small bookcases were placed underneath the aforementioned photos of MendeleMocher Sforim, Sholem Aleichem, and I.L. Peretz. A bust of Sholem Aleichem sat atopone. Books were inside each bookcase. The bookcases were not packed tightly; they con-tained just enough books to allow the stack to fall to one side yet remain somewhatupright, just like the bookcases many people would have had in their own homes.There was a familiar feel to this section of the pavilion, providing a welcome break fromthe other, more pedagogical spaces within the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion. Thislook into the pavilion provided through the postcards also illustrates how the ModernJewish Culture pavilion met what historian Julia Kostova argues was part of the expo-sition’s overall mandate: to “aid artistic production and to instill in the general public asense of the immense importance of the arts for the nation.”63 The postcards also highlighthow the arts can help articulate and construct a Jewish diaspora national identity.

One postcard made the tales implied within the walls of the literature section of thepavilion come to life. It depicted the mythic shtetl Kasrilevke, the setting for many ofSholem Aleichem’s most beloved stories. According to literary scholar Dan Miron, Kasri-levke “was depicted as an exclusively Jewish enclave… a tiny Jewish island in a vastnon-Jewish sea… [but]… Kasrilevke was also vulnerable to threats from the non-Jewishpopulation.”64 The postcard, as one of only two postcards based on images not takenfrom the pavilion itself, took these typical Jewish tropes of the shtetl and modernizedand globalized them, making Kasrilevke the quintessence of modern Jewish andYiddish culture as well as international anti-racism and antifascism.65 The postcard wasseemingly also an attempt to make Kasrilevke a real, rather than imagined, place, thusmelding a Yiddish literary and geographic home.

In addition to the postcards that the pavilion committee produced, Naye prese pub-lished the book Pariz in May 1937. Unlike the postcards, however, Pariz could be purchasedin kiosks in and around Paris for 10 francs. Perhaps created for the approximately 12,000–15,000 Yiddish-speaking tourists who came to Paris in 1937 to see the World’s Fair, Parizfeatured several sections dedicated to helping Yiddish-speakers learn about Paris.66 ButNaye prese wanted Yiddish-speakers who lived in Paris as well as the provinces to havea book on which they could rely to help them navigate the city. Unlike French-languageguides created to coincide with the World’s Fair, Pariz functioned almost exclusively as aguide to the city of Paris – not to the exposition.67

The introduction to the guidebook set out its scope and aim: “Thousands of Jews live inParis. Thousands of others have come to the largest capital in the world for the World’sFair.”68 The peculiar thing about this, however, is that the book was seemingly publishedfor those already living in Paris, and not for Yiddish-speaking Jews visiting Paris. The guide-book served as a crash course in modern French history for Yiddish immigrants. It high-lighted several public plazas such as the Arc de Triomphe, Bastille, Place de laConcorde, Place de la République, and the Eiffel Tower, and in almost every case thebook presented a particular location with a photograph and a two-paragraph description.It also included a detailed history of Paris.

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Naye prese used the World’s Fair, by way of the guidebook, as a way to introduce itsreaders to Paris and especially to the city’s Yiddish culture through the nation-buildingmeans of print culture.69 Naye prese, like Parizer haynt, regularly ran columns on “Life inParis” or “Parisian living.” Pariz was coupled to these initiatives as a gateway to furthershape people’s knowledge of the city. “Often times, Jewish residents of Paris and the pro-vinces lose time and money looking for the address of an institution, consulate, or otherorganization,” read an October 1937 Naye prese article on the guidebook. “They becomeperplexed because they may not know about the importance of the various monumentsin Paris.”70 Pariz, Naye prese told its readers, would help one save time and money, which iswhy the newspaper offered a coupon for 50% off the guidebook’s cover price. For Nayeprese, it was important that both locals and visitors were able to utilize their guidebook,which they felt would help Yiddish-speakers in Paris learn more about the city’s history,Métro and bus system, theatres, sporting clubs, youth groups, and unions.

The 1937 World’s Fair put arts, technology, folklore, fascism, antifascism, and modernYiddish culture side by side as part of a global microcosm. Seen by its organizers as abulwark against racism and antisemitism in the press and a display of great Yiddish cul-tural achievement, the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion formally tied together globaland Parisian Yiddish culture as well as international and domestic Popular Front politics.It also marked the apotheosis of interwar Parisian Yiddish culture, which for almost twodecades was based on cultural cooperation among Yiddish cultural groups of varying pol-itical stripes.

Highlighting both universal and particular aspects of Yiddish culture, the Yiddishculture-makers in Paris who helped create the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion soughtto display a sophisticated, global, pan-leftist Yiddish culture that spoke to Jews andnon-Jews around the world. Their reach was wide, touching communities both withinand outside the Yiddish-speaking cultural milieu, enabling them to position Paris as ahub of Yiddish culture that could codify a united front against fascism while simul-taneously demonstrating the developments within Yiddish culture during the twentiethcentury. Yiddish culture-makers in Paris were, to paraphrase the Naye prese, a living, pro-ductive community who were doing their part to contribute to human culture. And theydid all of this under the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

Notes

1. For an analysis of Sholem Aleichem’s role within Soviet Yiddish culture and politics, as well as amention of the portraits hanging at the World’s Fair, see Gennady Estraikh, “Soviet SholemAleichem,” in Translating Sholem Aleichem: History, Politics and Art, ed. Gennady Estraikh,Jordan Finkin, Kerstin Hoge, and Mikhail Krutikov (Oxford: Legenda, 2012), 73.

2. This figure (twomillion foreigners) does not include colonial subjects – a group that, accordingto historian Michael Goebel, defined anti-imperialist and alternative notions of nationalism inthe French métropole. See Michael Goebel, Anti-imperial Metropolis: Interwar Paris and theSeeds of Third-World Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 3–4. Approxi-mately 41.5 million people lived in France during the 1930s. For more on France as a terred’asile between 1918 and 1939, see Greg Burgess, Refuge in the Land of Liberty: A History ofAsylum and Refugee Protection in France since the Revolution (London: Palgrave Macmillan,2008), part 4. By the mid-1930s, the immigrant Yiddish-speaking Jewish population wasalmost double the number of so-called native French Jews. As a point of comparison, themuch-celebrated American Lost Generation in Paris numbered 40,000 at its peak during the

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interwar period. See Nancy L. Green, The Other Americans in Paris: Businessmen, Countesses,Wayward Youth, 1880–1941 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014). Immigrant Jews,however, were a modestly sized group compared with the hundreds of thousands of Polesand Italians in France during the same period. Many of these Jews, of course, would havealso been counted among the number of Poles as French immigration monitoring accountedfor country of origin, but not religion, ethnicity, or nationality (in the diasporic sense we willexplore).

3. Undated letter from the Yiddish Culture Front in Paris, signed by the entire Culture FrontExecutive Committee, which included Naoum Aronson as chairperson, in which the commit-tee notes that the First International Yiddish Culture Congress will take place during theWorld’s Fair: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Territorial Collection (Vilna Archives), RG 33,Box 17, folder titled “Yidishe kultur bavegung – YKUF Pariz.” For more on the First InternationalYiddish Culture Congress, see Sima Beeri, “Language in its Place: Yiddish as Seen Through theHistorical Prism of Literarishe Bleter, 1924–1939,” (PhD diss., University College London, 2013),(Chapter 9 of this dissertation is specifically about the links between the 1908 Czernowitz con-ference and the 1937 Paris conference); Sima Beeri, “The ‘Forgotten’ Yiddish Congress, WorldYiddish Culture Congress of 1937 in Paris,” paper presented at the Graduate Conference atNew York University, 2006; Matthew Hoffman, “From Czernowitz to Paris: The InternationalYiddish Culture Congress of 1937,” in Czernowitz at 100: The First Yiddish Language Conferencein Historical Perspective, ed. KalmanWeiser and Joshua A. Fogel (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books,2010), 151–64.

4. Jeffrey Shandler, ed., Awakening Lives: Autobiographies of Jewish Youth in Poland before theHolocaust (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), xv. Also see Michael C. Steinlauf,“Jewish Politics and Youth Culture in Interwar Poland: Preliminary Evidence from the YIVOAutobiographies,” in The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics: Bundism and Zionism inEastern Europe, ed. Zvi Gitelman (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011).

5. Rachel Ertel calls Paris a “hub for Yiddish writers, poets, [and] actors” in the early twentiethcentury in Jean Baumgarten, “Yiddish in France: A Conversation with Rachel Ertel,” trans.Alan Astro, Shofar 14, no. 3 (1996): 126.

6. I am using the term “culture-maker(s)” here as a direct translation of the Yiddish phrase kultur-tuer, which was used in memoriam to describe some of the activists in interwar Paris, mostnotably Léon Glaeser.

7. For an announcement of the opening day’s festivities, see “Inauguration de l’Exposition 1937,”Le Populaire, May 22, 1937, 1.

8. Jay Winter, Dreams of Peace and Freedom Utopian Moments in the 20th Century (New Haven:Yale University Press, 2006), 78.

9. For video footage of the World’s Fair, see “International Exhibition in Paris, 1937,” Video Col-lection, Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,RG-60.4398 and RG-60.4399.

10. Exposition international, arts et techniques, Paris 1937: Guide officiel (Paris: Société pour le Dével-oppement du Tourisme, 1937), 40–1.

11. See Jay Winter, Dreams of Peace and Freedom, 90; Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “Performingthe State: The Jewish Palestine Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair, 1939/40,” in The Art ofBeing Jewish in Modern Times, ed. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Jonathan Karp (Philadel-phia: University or Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 98–115.

12. For more on early twentieth-century Europe as a staging ground for a number of civil wars, seeStanley Payne, Civil War in Europe, 1905–1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

13. See, in this order, Karen Fiss, Grand Illusion: The Third Reich, the Paris Exposition, and the CulturalSeduction of France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010); Shanny Peer, France onDisplay: Peasants, Provincials, and Folklore in the 1937 Paris World’s Fair (Albany: State Universityof New York Press, 1998); James Herbert, Paris 1937: Worlds on Exhibition (Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press, 1998); Julia Kostova, “Spectacles of Modernity: Anxiety and Contradictionat the Interwar Paris Fairs of 1925, 1931 and 1937,” PhD dissertation, Rutgers University,

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2011; Jay Winter, Dreams of Peace and Freedom; Gijs van Hensbergen, Guernica: The Biographyof a Twentieth-Century Icon (New York: Bloomsbury, 2005).

14. See Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “Performing the State: The Jewish Palestine Pavilion at theNew York World’s Fair, 1939/40.” Jay Winter’s lens also utilizes this proto-Zionist viewpoint: JayWinter, Dreams of Peace and Freedom.

15. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett describes Jewish exhibitions at Parisian World’s Fairs between1851 and 1940, but these exhibitions “framed the presentation of Jewish subjects in termsof art and civilization and secured for Judaism a central place in the history of religion” andnone was dedicated to or titled a pavilion of “modern Jewish culture.” This removal of the reli-gious context will become problematic for some native French Jewish communities. SeeBarbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage (Berkeley:University of California Press, 1998), 79.

16. Naye prese, August 12, 1937, 5.17. It is not clear that the Modern Jewish Culture pavilion committee paid for their participation in

the International Pavilion. According to a November 16, 1937 letter to Abramovich, severalattempts had been made to confirm payment through the Transatlantic Bank: see Archivesnationales, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, expo 37 F/12/12357, Folder “Pavillon International,” Letterdated November 16, 1937.

18. Archives nationales, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, expo 37 F/12/12356, Folder “Divers,” “Pavillon Inter-national, Répartition des Emplacements.” The production cost would wind up being an issuefor the planning committee: the World’s Fair had difficulty obtaining payment for costs relat-ing to the pavilion. See Archives nationales, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, expo 37 F/12/12357, Folder“Pavillon International,” report titled “Le comité d’organisation du Pavillon International à l’Ex-position Internationale Paris 1937, November 30, 1937.” The report notes that they may havehad difficulty obtaining payment from Austria and Romania, too. See also Archives nationales,Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, expo 37 F/12/12357, Folder “Pavillon International,” financial ledger, anda November 16, 1937 letter from the Fair’s organizational committee to Abramovich; Guideofficiel, 67.

19. Archives nationales, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, expo 37 F/12/12357, Folder “Pavillon International,”“Exposition de 1937, Pavillon International, Règlement Intérieur,” August 1, 1937.

20. Cited in James D. Herbert, Paris 1937: Worlds on Exhibition, 18. Footnote 11 on page 175 cites aquote in Edmond Labbé, Rapport général: Exposition internationale des arts et techniques dansla vie moderne, 11 vols (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1938–40), vol. 1, 239. For a study on JosephCaillaux and the pre-1914 scandal in which he and his wife were involved, see Edward Beren-son, The Trial of Madame Caillaux (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).

21. Archives nationales, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, expo 37 F/12/12357, Folder “Pavillon International,”“Exposition de 1937, Pavillon International, Règlement Intérieur,” August 1, 1937.

22. Archives nationales, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, expo 37 F/12/12357, Folder “Pavillon International,”Document “Le Pavillon International: Règlement Intérieur,” “Section du comité provisoire pourl’Exposition de la culture Juive moderne.”

23. Archives nationales, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, expo 37 F/12/12356, Folder “Divers,” “Note à l’atten-tion de M. le Commissaire Général,” April 12, 1937.

24. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, RG 1456, Raphael Abramovich Archive, Folder 3.25. “Une section de la culture juive moderne à l’Exposition,” L’Univers israélite 43 (1937): 664.26. “Vegn a pavilion fun der yidish-veltlekher kultur oyf der velt-oyshtelung in pariz,” YIVO Insti-

tute for Jewish Research, RG 82, YIVO, Vilna (Tcherikower Archive), Folder 2225, unnumbereddocument.

27. Ibid.28. For a recent scholarly analysis of Schwartzbard, see Kelly Scott Johnson, “Sholem Schwarzbard:

Biography of a Jewish Assassin,” PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 2012.29. Proposals to develop the 1937 World’s Fair were developed as early as 1928. See Robert

H. Kargon, Karen Fiss, Morris Low, and Arthur P. Molella, World’s Fairs on the Eve of War:Science, Technology, and Modernity, 1937–1942 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,2015), Chapter 2.

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30. “Men zukht a nomen far der velt-oysshtelung fun 1937,” Naye prese, August 18, 1934, 5; “Arumder oysshtelung fun 1937,” Naye prese, September 6, 1934, 5. For more on the 1931 Inter-national Colonial Exposition in Paris, see Kostova, “Spectacles of Modernity,” Chapter 2.

31. PYAT ran from 1934 to 1940. Their origins go back to the late 1920s when it was the Kultur-ligePariz’s drama circle.

32. “Goldgreber,” playbill, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Richelieu, Fonds Gérard Frydman, Lethéâtre yiddish à Paris [Document d’archives]: 1883–1989, 4o COL 020/8.

33. “Pavilion yidish vert shabes geefnt,” Naye prese, August 12, 1937, 5.34. B. Feder, “‘11 milian redn yidish’ (a bazukh in yidishn kultur-pavilion),” Naye prese, August 15,

1937, 5.35. See Pierre Birnbaum, Léon Blum: Prime Minister, Socialist, Zionist (New Haven: Yale University

Press, 2015).36. “Haynt efnt zikh kultur-pavilion,” Naye prese, August 14, 1937, 4.37. Ibid.38. Ibid.39. “Fayerlekh derefnt yidishn kultur-pavilion,” Naye prese, August 15, 1937, 1.40. Ibid.41. Ibid.42. For a comparative study on Naye prese and Parizer haynt, see Aline Benain and Audrey Kiche-

lewski, “Parizer haynt et Naïe presse, les itinéraires paradoxaux de deux quotidiens parisiens enlangue yiddish,” Archives juives 36 (2003): 52–69; Shmuel Bunim, “Le courrier des lecteurs duParizer haynt (1926–1932),” Archives juives 30 (1997): 21–8.

43. I. Khamski, “Di oyshtelung 1937 vos men vet alts zehn,” Parizer haynt, April 9, 1937, 4. Also seevarious columns under the title “Exposition 1937,” Parizer haynt, May 16, May 18, May 19, May20, May 21, May 22, and May 23, 1937.

44. Aron Alperin, “Haynt-fayerlikhe erefnung fun der oysshtelung 1937,” Parizer haynt, May 24,1937, 1.

45. “Frankraykh tsiht-tsu ale rasn,” in I. Hamski, “’Shehn vi a paeme’ … ,” Parizer haynt, May 25,1937, 3.

46. Nisn Frank, “Unzer yidisherbayshtayer tsu der oyshtelung,” Parizer haynt, May 28, 1937, 3, 5.47. “Der id. kultur-pavilion oyf der oysshtelung, efent zikh shoyn,” Parizer haynt, August 9, 1937,

3. For a study of the interwar Jewish renaissance in Germany, see Michael Brenner, The Renais-sance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).

48. Wolf Wieviorka, “Nokh der erefnung fun’m id. kultur-pavilion oyf der oysshtelung,” Parizerhaynt, August 18, 1937, 3.

49. “La section de culture juive moderne a été inaugurée à l’Exposition mondiale,” La Tribune juive,August 20, 1937, 515.

50. Pariser Tageszeitung was a late 1930s German Jewish exile newspaper in Paris. See WalterF. Peterson, “Das Dilemma linksliberaler deutscher Journalisten im Exil Der Fall des ‘PariserTageblatts,’” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 32, no. 2 (1984): 269–88; Walter F. Peterson,Berlin Liberal Press in Exile: History of the “Pariser-Tageblatt-Pariser Tageszeitung,” 1933–1940(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1987).

51. “Die Einweihung des Pavillons für Jüdische Kultur,” Pariser Tageszeitung, August 16, 1937, 3. Fora discussion on Peretz’s socialism, see Adi Mahalel, “The Radical Years of I.L. Peretz,” PhD dis-sertation, Columbia University, 2014, Chapter 4.

52. “Die Einweihung des Pavillons für Jüdische Kultur,” Pariser Tageszeitung, August 16, 1937, 3.53. Le Populaire, August 13, 1937, 3.54. “Aron Beckerman Press Card # 1,315,” les Archives départementales de la Seine-Saint-Denis,

Archives du Parti communiste français, Fonds David Diamant, Archives Aron Beckerman,335J 15–16.

55. For more on Aron Beckerman and his cultural contributions to Yiddish Paris, see Nick Under-wood, “Aron Beckerman’s City of Light: Writing French History and Defining Immigrant JewishSpace in Interwar Paris,” Urban History, October 2015, 1–17, http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S096392681500084X

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56. Aron Beckerman, “Parizer velt-oysshtelung 1937 (Arts et techniques dans la vie moderne),”Chernovitzer Bleter, June 30, 1937, 2. “Colored people” was written in English in roman charac-ters in the Chernovitzer Bleter piece.

57. Aron Beckerman, “Pavilion fun der yidisher kultur, oyf der velt-oysshtelungin pariz,” Chernovit-zer Bleter, September 17, 1937, 3.

58. Ibid.59. Beckerman also reported regularly on Paris for Buenos Aires’ leftist Di prese.60. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, RG 116, Territorial Collection, France I, Box 87, Folder 5,

“1937 World’s Fair Postcards.”61. For a comparison between Naye prese and Parizer haynt, see Benain and Kichelewski, “Parizer

Haynt et Naïe Presse.”62. Literature helps to standardize language and construct national identity. Language standard-

ization is one of the steps Gellner notes as essential in the construction of a “nation.” SeeErnest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, 2nd edn (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009).

63. Julia Kostova, Spectacles of Modernity, 225.64. Dan Miron, “The Literary Image of the Shtetl,” Jewish Social Studies 1, no. 3 (1995): 1, 3.65. For recent studies on the shtetl, which collectively argue that the lived historical reality and

metaphorical use of the shtetl are indeed different, see Jeffrey Shandler, Shtetl: A VernacularIntellectual History (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2013); Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, The Golden Age Shtetl: A New History of Jewish Life in East Europe (Princeton, NJ: Prin-ceton University Press, 2014); Steven Katz, ed., The Shtetl: New Evaluations (New York:New York University Press, 2006); Dan Miron, Image of the Shtetl and Other Studies ofModern Jewish Literary Imagination (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000); GennadyEstraikh and Mikhail Krutikov, eds., The Shtetl: Image and Reality (Oxford: Legenda, 2000).

66. Since Nazi Germany refused transit visas to Jews travelling to France from Lithuania and otherparts of Eastern Europe, the number of potential Yiddish-speaking tourists in Paris for theWorld’s Fair was diminished. However, approximately 12,000–15,000 Eastern European Jewsdid come to Paris as tourists to see the World’s Fair and many remained illegally: VickiCaron, Uneasy Asylum: France and the Jewish Refugee Crisis, 1933–1942 (Stanford, CA: StanfordUniversity Press, 1999), 164. See also “L’Allemagne hitlérienne veut empêcher les israélites devisiter l’Exposition de Paris,” L’Univers israélite 43 (1937): 664.

67. See for example, Guide officiel.68. Pariz, 3.69. For more on the role of print culture in developing national identity, see Benedict Anderson,

Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. edn (New York:Verso, 2006).

70. “Yidish hant-bukh ‘pariz’ tsum halbn prayz veln bakumen di layender fun der ‘naye prese,’”Naye prese, October 30, 1937, 2.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Vicki Caron, Gennady Estraikh, Lisa Leff, David Shneer, Sebastian Schulman,Anna Shternshis, the participants of the University of Toronto’s 2015 conference “Global YiddishCulture: 1938–1948,” and East European Jewish Affairs’ anonymous readers for their suggestionson previous versions of this essay.

Notes on contributor

Nick Underwood is a PhD candidate in modern European and Jewish history at the University ofColorado Boulder where he will complete a dissertation in August 2016 titled “Staging a NewCommunity: Immigrant Yiddish Culture and Diaspora Nationalism in Interwar Paris, 1919-1940.”

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