Description
Between Two Wars is the second book by journalist Israel Medres to be translated in recent years into both English and French. When it was first published in the original Yiddish version almost forty years ago, it was acclaimed as a valuable eyewitness account, by a seasoned journalist and newspaper reporter, of a turbulent and tragic time in the history of Canadian Jewry. With characteristic ease and economy of style Medres vividly evokes all the major themes of the 1920s, 30s and 40s, including the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution, the Crash of 1929, and the events leading up to World War II. He writes about organized Jewish labour, problems of religious Jews, education, Zionism, the doctor's strike against the Jews, the trial against anti-Semitism in Ottawa, Jews in the Canadian war effort, Canadian soldiers as liberators, refugees, and the impact of the State of Israel Most fascinating of all are the accounts of events the author himself witnessed and interviews he conducted personally, including a dramatic meeting with Premier Duplessis on the eve of the Holocaust. "The exchange between the two men is worthy of a historical novel É," wrote reviewer David Homel in La Presse. From today's perspective, it is sad and almost painful to read about the idyllic hopes that anti-Semitism would disappear once the Jews had a country of their own and that Arab and Jew would live in harmony. Yet despite the horrors and crises of the last century, the Jewish community in Canada grew, prospered and became securely established. The author's musings in the final chapter of the book about the new developments in Jewish life in Canada at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s the flight to suburbia, the new synagogues, assimilation and the impact of the State of Israel add yet another dimension to this unique account of the Jewish community in Canada.Israel Medres (1894-1964) was a full-time staff writer for the Montreal Yiddish daily, the Keneder Adler.
About the authors
Israel Medres was a staff writer for the Keneder Adler for 25 years. His articles appeared in Yiddish papers the world over.
With a background in modern history, modern languages and literature (French, Russian) and law, Vivian Felsen is a long-time translator of both French and Yiddish into English. Her published translations include books on Canadian Jewish history, Holocaust memoirs, and Yiddish short stories by women writers. Her involvement in Canadian Jewish Studies began with the translation of two books by her grandfather, Montreal Yiddish journalist Israel Medres. For the first translation, Montreal of Yesterday: Jewish Life in Montreal, 1900–1920, she won a Canadian Jewish Book Award in 2001 for Yiddish translation, and for the second, Between the Wars: Canadian Jews in Transition, she was the recipient of a J. I. Segal Award for the best translation of a book on a Jewish theme (in 2004). For her most recently published translation, J. I. Segal (1896–1954): A Montreal Yiddish Poet and His Milieu (2017) she has just been named a Finalist for the 2018 Governor General’s Award in Translation (French into English). Some of the many poems by Segal, which she translated from Yiddish into English for that book, will appear in the forthcoming issue of the journal Canadian Jewish Studies. Among the several Holocaust memoirs which she has translated is Le Soleil voilé, Auschwitz 1942–1945 by Paul Schaffer. Her English version, published in 2015 as The Veiled Sun: From Auschwitz to New Beginning, includes a uniquely personal introduction to the original French edition by the late Simone Veil. The Veil of Tears (2016), her translation of the 1944 memoir Fun natsishen yomertol by Rabbi Pinchas Hirschprung, won a gold medal in the autobiography/memoir category of the 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards, and has just earned her the 2018 J. I. Segal Award for translation of a book on a Jewish theme. Vivian Felsen’s translations from the Yiddish of short stories by women writers have appeared in print, most notably in The Exile Book of Yiddish Women Writers (ed. Frieda Johles Forman), which received a Canadian Jewish Book Award in 2014. Over the years, she has made presentations related to Yiddish and Yiddish translation to various groups and organizations, as well as at academic conferences in Canada, the U.S., and Poland. She was a contributor to New Readings of Yiddish Montreal — Traduire le Montréal yiddish (eds. Pierre Anctil, Norman Ravvin, Sherry Simon; 2007), and her essay on Canadian Yiddish literature will be published in Kanade, di Goldene Medine? Perspectives on Canadian-Jewish Literature and Culture / Perspectives sur la littérature et la culture juives canadiennes (eds: Krzysztof Majer, Justyna Fruzinska, Józef Kwaterko and Norman Ravvin), scheduled to appear in November of 2018. Vivian Felsen is also a visual artist who has regularly exhibited her paintings in Toronto for over forty years.
