Sad News: Benjamin Harshav (1928-2015)

YIVO has just learned of the passing of Benjamin Harshav yesterday, on April 23, 2015.

Benjamin Harshav was Professor Emeritus of Hebrew Language & Literature at Yale University and the author of acclaimed works on Jewish culture, including Language in the Time of Revolution (1999), The Meaning of Yiddish (1990), American Yiddish Poetry, and, in conjunction with YIVO and Nusach Vilne, an English translation of Herman Kruk’s diary of the Vilna Ghetto,  The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania (2002).

Professor Harshav was also a long-time associate of YIVO, a connection that lasted his entire life, from his childhood in Vilna, where he was the playmate of the children of YIVO founder Max Weinreich, to his later years, when he and his wife, the scholar and translator Barbara Harshav, served as advisors to YIVO projects and appeared in YIVO public programs.

We hope to post a full obituary for Benjamin Harshav in the next Yedies.

Our deepest condolences to his widow, Barbara Harshav, and to his other loved ones, friends, and colleagues.