Across the Great Divide

About the Book

"The publication of translated essays by Dr. Abraham Coralnik is an important step in enlarging our understanding of the cultural milieu of the early twentieth century in which Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe become Americanized."-Professor Eli Katz, University of California, Berkeley

In 1937, when the essayist Abraham Coralnik died of a heart attack, Yiddish speakers in the United States lost one of their most articulate guides. As a columnist for the New York newspaper Der Tog (The Day) during the 1920's and 1930's, Coralnik moved effortlessly from discussions of Zionist politics to analyses of Marx and Plato to travelogues through the American heartland. As Europe exploded in anti-Semitism, and American Jewish life continued its spectacular transformation into the land of promise and confusion, Coralnik provided both insight and context for an immigrant community desperate to understand the changes taking place around it.

Today, Coralnik's essays can be enjoyed not just for their perspective on two crucial decades of Jewish history, but for their timeless wisdom about culture, spirituality, philosophy and history.

In Volume One of Across the Great Divide, Coralnik analyzes a European Jewish community in the process of disintegration, and an American Jewish society on the rise; the politics surrounding the development of pre-state Israel; the broad impact of the Hasidic movement; and the quirky existence of European Jewish refugees in places like Mexico and Cuba.

About the Translator: Beatrice Coralnik Papo, the eldest daughter of Abraham Coralnik, was born in Berlin in 1913. Educated in Germany, Russia and France, she came to the U.S. in her early 20s. A social worker by profession, Mrs. Papo is a lifelong student of literature, and has spent the last two decades translating her father's essays. She lives in San Jose, California.

About the Author

Abraham Coralnik, born in the Ukraine in 1883, received both a Yeshiva education and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Vienna. He was an editor of Theodore Herzl?s newspaper Die Welt (The World), a senior minister in the short-lived first Soviet government, and an essayist for the New York Yiddish daily Der Tog (the Day).