Lili Berger wrote about the most traumatic and transformative developments of the twentieth century to which she herself was an eyewitness. On the Waves of Destiny presents an anthology that reflects her early life in interwar Poland during the rise of Hitler, her Second World War activities in occupied Paris where she was active in the Communist resistance, and her sojourn in Communist Poland from 1949 to 1968.
The majority of her essays are pen portraits, often based on her own personal recollections, in which she made clear that she considered it her duty to memorialize the tens of thousands of Polish Jewish writers and artists who were murdered during the Holocaust, such as author and painter Bruno Schulz, historian Emanuel Ringelblum, and artist Gela Seksztajn, as well as to preserve their work. Even her short stories are based on actual experiences, not only her own but also those of people around her.
In her stories, her essays, and her allegorical fables, she explored issues such as equality for women, the moral responsibility of a writer, the question of Jewish identity, and the creative process in general. The translations in On the Waves of Destiny ensure that Lili Berger’s legacy will continue to resonate with future generations of readers.

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Frieda Johles Forman was an author, translator, pioneer of feminist Jewish studies, who founded the Women’s Educational Resource Centre at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, and the award-winning editor of Found Treasures: Stories by Yiddish Women Writers.

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Sam Blatt is a Yiddish educator, translator, and editor, who has served as the coordinator of Yiddish teachers for adult education in the Toronto Jewish community.

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Judy Nisenholt is a Yiddish Book Center translation fellow with extensive experience translating Yiddish memoirs and letters.

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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.

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