No Small Matter
For many centuries Jews were renowned for the efforts they put into their children's welfare and education. Eventually, prioritizing children became a modern Western norm, as reflected in an abundance of research in fields such as pediatric medicine, psychology, and law. In other academic fields, however, young children in particular have received less attention, perhaps because they rarely leave written documentation. The interdisciplinary symposium in this volume seeks to overcome this challenge by delving into different facets of Jewish childhood in history, literature, and film. The book visits five continents and studies Jewish children from the 19th century until the present. It includes chapters on the demographic patterns of Jewish reproduction; on the evolution of bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies; on the role children played in the project of Hebrew revival; on their immigrant experiences in the United States; on novels for young Jewish readers written in Hebrew and Yiddish; and on Jewish themes in films featuring children. Several chapters focus on child Holocaust survivors or the children of survivors in a variety of settings ranging from Europe, North Africa, and Israel to the summer bungalow colonies of the Catskill Mountains. In addition to the symposium, this volume also features chapters on a transformative Yiddish poem by a Soviet Jewish author and on the cultural legacy of Lenny Bruce.